The amount of circle-jerking that goes on in social groups of people who do this is nauseating. The cut that companies make from what simply amounts to advertising is absurd, the workers really do get fleeced on multiple levels by their own employers and then by foreign resellers.

Without ad blockers I can only imagine how many ads for shitty upsold watches and overpriced wool socks I would be seeing.

Really fucking ironic that the merchant class was so low on the Chinese hierarchy totem pole back in the day.

Consumers have a role to play in all of this by being so straight up idiotic most of the time.