HOW TARGET KNOWS WHAT YOU WANT BEFORE YOU DO
Chapter summary from The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.
Companies don’t need to read your mind. They only need to watch your habits. This chapter explores how retailers use data to predict what customers will do next—and to shape what feels “normal” to buy.
The tactic isn’t pure manipulation; it’s pattern recognition. Small signals, repeated at scale, reveal life changes and routines. Once a company can guess your next need, it can time an offer so it feels like your idea.
But the chapter also shows the boundary: people resist feeling watched. So the most effective influence often hides inside familiar packaging—ads and coupons that feel random, even when they’re targeted.
The deeper point is unsettling. Your habits leak information. And when someone else can read those loops, they can nudge them. Privacy isn’t only about secrets. It’s about autonomy.
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