Silicon Valley is all about the hard sell these days

In March, Mark Zuckerberg’s company Meta also ran ads for Instagram Teen accounts. One 30-second clip shows a mother watching her son cross the street with text stating: “You’ve always taken care of them. We’re here to do it with you.” On December 10, Australia’s historic social media ban will come into effect for teenagers. The order requires companies to deactivate accounts of children under 16 years of age. So far, Meta, TikTok, Snap, and YouTube have agreed to comply with the new regulations.

For now, the jury is still out on how successful these messages will be. “I hate these damned commercials for ChatGPT that show it helps people who want to plan a ‘chill’ date or how to become a ‘morning person,’ all things that should have been learned from society and not from the vitriolic autocorrect. Fuck all that noise,” Jonathan Flowers, an assistant professor of philosophy at California State University-Northridge, wrote on Bluesky.

Author Lincoln Michel added on

Despite such sentiments, audiences have never been more mature to aggressively sell technology than they are now, says Brian Fuhrer, senior vice president of product strategy at Nielsen. More than 70 percent of TV viewing in the third quarter of 2025 was on ad-supported platforms, according to a Nielsen analysis, with streaming accounting for nearly half of all ad-supported viewership. In the past week alone, I’ve encountered ads for TikTok and Instagram, often the same ads, across Peacock, Amazon, and Hulu.

“Advertising has effectively funded TV content for decades,” says Fuhrer. The difference now is the extent to which Silicon Valley in particular relies on marketing itself to consumers in a way that proves not only their value, but also their lasting usefulness.

It’s a trend that the tech elite are remarkably aware of as they convince people to buy into whatever they’re trying to build. In his TV interview with Fallon, Altman said there are “many downsides to technology,” but noted that it is a “neutralizing force.” It was all part of the tough sell. Because even Silicon Valley can’t avoid the reality it faces: You can’t create a future if consumers don’t believe in your product.