It's happened to everyone. You mention a pair of sneakers out loud and a while later your Instagram fills with sneakers. You read a piece of news about diets and for weeks everything that gets recommended to you is intermittent fasting. You look up information about a destination once and the algorithm won't let go. Targeted advertising doesn't offer us discovery, it offers us confirmation. And that difference, however minor it looks, is rewriting the way we think.
The diagnosis: an idea already in the books
In his unpublished novel The Voice of the Fools, author Ardan Veyr puts the problem bluntly: "The real power of algorithms isn't to show you what you want to see, but to hide from you what you didn't know you needed to know." This isn't science fiction. It's what happens every time you open a social network.
The engine of today's digital advertising works like this:
- It watches you: clicks, pauses, which posts you save, where your eyes settle on the screen.
- It profiles you: with that data it builds a model of who you are, what you fear, what you want.
- It serves you messages designed specifically to trigger emotions you already have — fear, desire, belonging, outrage.
- It measures whether you react. Refines the model. Starts again, more finely tuned.
The problem isn't that ads exist. The problem is that this system reinforces what you already think, instead of opening you up to what you didn't know. Veyr puts it this way: "People are no longer the product, they are the raw material of a new economic order." And he's not just talking about your attention. He's talking about your way of thinking.
The balance we lost
A nuance is needed here, because we don't want to fall into the opposite extreme. Advertising isn't bad in itself. It's useful. There are moments when you need to discover a product you didn't know existed, a solution to a problem you've been carrying around, an event you'd love to attend. Without some advertising you'd never have known that the bar on the corner now opens on Mondays, that there's a tool that saves you hours of work, that a local creator is releasing a new book. Living with zero external discovery is living inside an even worse echo chamber.
What broke isn't advertising. It's consent. The original idea — someone shows you something, you decide if you're interested — turned, without anyone signing anything, into something else: a system that reads you, classifies you and pushes you, without your explicit permission, in whatever direction its metrics say you should go.
The idea: liberated advertising
That's where the proposal comes from. We call it liberated advertising and the rule is very simple:
You decide which advertising you receive. The app doesn't infer, doesn't profile by behavior, doesn't reinforce ideas you already have. Only what you've invited in comes in.
It's the operational translation of that wish Veyr leaves at the end of his book: "Imagine a world where information isn't collected and used to preach messages that validate your thoughts at you, but a place where what you consume is truly your choice. That is the world I imagine. The world where we would truly be free."
In Latidos we make it real like this:
- Explicit subscription. If you want to see sponsored content about "cycling", "indie music" or "restaurants in your city", you turn it on yourself on a clear screen. If you don't turn it on, it doesn't come in.
- Categories, not profiles. We don't classify you as "urban woman, 32, interested in sustainability with moderate anxiety". We offer neutral categories and you pick. Period.
- No silent retargeting. A business channel can't "chase" you because you went past their profile. They only appear if you subscribed to their category.
- No reinforcement algorithm. What you receive isn't "tuned" based on how you react. If you subscribe to "low-budget travel", you'll see sponsored content about low-budget travel — varied, not escalating toward an ever more extreme version of the same idea.
- Cancellable in one tap. If a category starts to tire you, take it off. You go back to a Latidos without that category. No penalty, no "but surely you'll like this other thing".
Why this matters beyond marketing
If this were just an aesthetic product preference, we wouldn't write a whole article about it. But there are three deep consequences that justify the effort.
1. Recovers critical thinking
When a system reinforces what you already believe for months, you stop needing to think. Doubt — what Veyr describes as "an act of intellectual dignity" — atrophies. If you never receive information that makes you uncomfortable, you never have to hold a contradiction. And without contradiction, there's no thinking. Only repetition.
Liberated advertising doesn't solve this problem by itself (the editorial feed also matters), but at least it doesn't add fuel: it stops being one more lever pushing you toward your own reflection.
2. Breaks the radicalization loop
Veyr describes it masterfully in his chapter on the "communities of nonsense": you start watching a curious video, the algorithm recommends another one slightly more extreme, then another, and after months you're inside a closed community convinced the Earth is flat or that vaccines have microchips. Nobody asked for that trip. The algorithm built it because each step increased your screen time.
Liberated advertising interrupts part of that mechanism. If you want to enter a niche, you do it yourself, consciously. The app doesn't push you in a direction because it sees you react more strongly there.
3. Restores legitimate utility to advertising
Paradoxically, this model is better for serious advertisers. When someone actively subscribes to your category, they're telling you "I want to see what you offer". It's a voluntary audience, not a chase. Healthier conversion rates, less brand burnout, fewer cookies to track, less legal risk with GDPR. What you lose in raw reach you gain in quality.
The ones who lose out are those who need to deceive to sell. And frankly, we won't lose sleep over leaving them outside.
"But then I won't discover new things"
The most common objection, and a fair one. If I only see what I ask for, aren't I closing myself off from the world?
That's why Latidos isn't only liberated advertising. The editorial side — Latidos from channels you follow, discovery via declared (not inferred) interests, explicitly tagged recommendations — keeps offering you surprises. What changes is that commercial pressure stops being your feed's engine. What you discover is because real people are publishing things that match the interests you declared, not because a brand paid to slip into your head with a message an AI decided would work on you.
And for brands that bring real value: there are categories. There are business channels. The model doesn't exclude them. It invites them to compete for subscribers who want them, not over data from people who don't yet know they're going to be exposed to it.
What liberated advertising does NOT promise
To be honest:
- It doesn't make you immune to your own biases. If you choose to subscribe only to categories that confirm what you already think, you'll build your own bubble. The difference is that you'll have built it, not an algorithm. That's freedom — uncomfortable, but freedom.
- It's not free for creators. People living off Latidos still have monetization options (transparent boost, paid subscriptions, direct products). They just won't be allowed to buy your attention without your explicit consent.
- It doesn't solve the broader problem Veyr's book describes. The crisis of critical thinking, social fragmentation, the loss of prestige of science — all of that is bigger than any app. KAIXO is one piece. A piece that tries not to make things worse and, where it can, to help a little.
The spirit behind the name
We call this "liberated advertising" because we want the word to carry two senses: liberated from the user (the app doesn't impose it) and liberating the user (the user regains control over what enters their attention). It's not marketing. It's a product decision that shapes how we write the code.
Veyr closes his novel with a question we also asked ourselves while designing Latidos: "What if the real act of rebellion were no longer to shout our truth, but to dare to stay quiet and listen… until we can hear what we are not allowed to say?"
Building liberated advertising is, in its way, quieting the noise of the algorithm enough to let you hear what you yourself wanted to know.
An acknowledgement
This article wouldn't exist without reading The Voice of the Fools by Ardan Veyr — an unpublished novel that sustains a sharp and at the same time compassionate critique of today's digital ecosystem. Its protagonist, Clara, walks the same path many of us have walked without knowing: from enthusiasm for digital connection to weariness, from weariness to silence, from silence to doubt. If it ever gets published, we'll recommend it without reservation.
In the meantime, what we can do from here is build products that don't contradict what the book argues. Latidos isn't a utopia. It's an attempt. And liberated advertising is one of the most concrete steps in that direction.
FAQ
How do I activate liberated advertising in Latidos? You don't have to activate anything — it's the default mode. By default you do NOT receive sponsored content except in categories you explicitly subscribe to from Settings → Advertising.
What if I don't subscribe to any category? Your Latidos will be 100% editorial: you'll only see channels you follow and discovery via declared interests. No sponsored at all.
Can I see what data the app uses to show me ads? Yes. In Settings → Privacy you can see exactly which categories you've activated. There are no other hidden signals.
And if I'm a brand, how do I appear? You create a business channel, declare categories for your activity, and users subscribed to those categories can receive your boosts. No cookies, no retargeting outside KAIXO, no sharing data with third parties.
Is this legally stricter than GDPR? Yes. GDPR already requires consent, but it allows "legitimate interests" that in practice open quite a few doors. Liberated advertising closes those doors voluntarily.