I've started getting ads from the app I use to do my laundry. My laundry machine wants me to spend more money so that I can enter a laundry raffle to win $50. This is something out of a dystopian novel.

There's no doubt that having the app makes doing laundry much easier than putting quarters into the machine. But, it's not like I had any choice in the matter. There's now a middleman between me and what I need to do. That middleman is some corporation with quarterly reviews, a sales department, and the Christmas bonus. The incentives at such a place are the same, no matter if they're selling you diamonds or trash bags. And they lead to weird results, like the laundry app notifying you to go wash your clothes more.