If I want to tell my mom something, the most effective way is not to try to sneak my message into some search result of hers.

When I say "target audience" and "humans" I mean it in the most literal sense. The most effective way to tell people that you built something for them is to tell them.

Let's make this concrete. Let's say you're CNET—your target audience is millions upon millions of people who are interested in tech news. What is your alternative strategy for telling these tens of millions of people that you have a new article on topic X?

Note that only a tiny fraction of your audience is already subscribed to some form of push notification from your service.

> What is your alternative strategy for telling these tens of millions of people that you have a new article on topic X?

None. I don't know tens of millions of people.

Why do you think that CNET - a relatively small group of people - should have the power to reach an influence tens of millions of people, even if only in a small way per person? I don't think that's healthy for anyone involved.

I see. So when you refer to your mom you meant that literally—humans should only ever strive to do business with people they know directly.

I happen to disagree, but it's obvious that we're working from such completely different axioms that there's no point in arguing this further.

The premise you're suggesting is only the most effective way to tell a small number of people (ie tell them directly).

That's why radio, TV, newspaper advertising was so effective for so long.

Even for a small convenience store, larger scale - mass audience, automated - advertising is almost always a necessity and a far more effective use of time.