Instead of psyops you could see the ads as a friendly reminder you wanted to buy that. They even pay to remind you. They often have no way of knowing you already bought (enough) of the same product/type.
Most ads have sophisticated analytics, and not only about individual users. That means, basically, that they wouldn't spend their money advertising this way if it wasn't working at all or if there was a more profitable way.
If ads were only a friendly reminder, then why don't they go about it in a different way, which is completely "opt-in"?
Also, if I'm on a subway and start "reminding" the people around me that their clothes are out of fashion and they can buy new ones at my shop, do you think that people would consider that as friendly? Would you?
The 'psyops' was related to Cambridge Analytica using hyper-targeted messages to affect the outcome of elections; see the "Do So" campaign designed to decrease Black voter turnout in Trinidad and Tobogo [1].
As I said, I don't mind finding out about cool things to buy. I definitely don't want to be sucked into misunderstanding and hating people, or being fooled into acting against my own interests.
Not ‘hyper-targeted’. Cambridge Analytica never did that. The (non-technical) salespeople kept saying they were to impress (non-technical) campaign managers but there wasn’t anything like that.
The “Do so” is a far better example of what they really did: develop a talent for race-based dog-whistle type messaging that _anyone_ could see but where one group would respond differently. The main differentiator that Cambridge Analytica would introduce was Social media vs. traditional press to split messaging by age-group. They tried to improve it using magazine subscription and car brand (from credit reports) but it wasn’t much better than using party registration datasets.
Most ads have sophisticated analytics, and not only about individual users. That means, basically, that they wouldn't spend their money advertising this way if it wasn't working at all or if there was a more profitable way.