Aliexpress listened to a conversation I had with a friend about sweaters. Next time I open my browser, aliexpress is the 1st page, in the search bar is "swheeeaters". They don't even know how to spell sweater, but they know that I want it.
A do agree with you about confirmation bias. If a commercial doesn't apply to me I tend not to pay attention.
It's likely that we are being subconsciously primed to buy certain predictable things. The priming could be unintentional, take for instance a bad kaspersky advertisement (https://www.instagram.com/p/CLY0DANJ0nU/)v that reminds people how awesome USB-C products are.
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