I know this is false because I’ve looked into how it works, and it still makes me feel sick to hear every time. Of course, the truth is bad enough, we don’t need to lie.

It’s good to keep in mind, but I mean do you sit there through 1-3 minute ads not skipping forward? I don’t watch much television, I mostly watch YouTube. So I watch a lot of it. What good is watching an ad going to do if I’m never going to buy anything from them? Once or twice, I’ve needed or wanted a product or service I thought might be promoted on YouTube, I went and looked for a creator to get a link/code from. But I think I did that two times in the past 9 years of being an avid YouTube watcher, and those times I was not buying the product due to ads, just thought I’d support a creator since I was going to make a purchase. I don’t have sponsor block (I use NewPipe and I don’t feel like learning a new app), but I just skip all the ads by tapping the skip button a bunch. They’re often 2 full minutes.

Walmart is not a membership store. I never scanned a membership card, or put in any code or anything. I walked in with my child, browsed around a little bit, ended up purchasing a water gun and some potted flowers, paid at the self-scan, and walked out. I did use a debit card, but that card shouldn’t even be connected with the old account that I got an email for, as the card is years newer than the account.

I’ve never agreed to this, but I might be on Walmart Wi-Fi from a long time ago. Once recently shopping at Walmart in person I got an email to my account saying something really creepy like, “rate your in store purchases” and sent me pictures of each item I bought IN STORE with an invitation to rate each. Also included my real name. This isn’t even the email I use for my online pickup orders.