So to answer your question: it’s early. We are barely a decade into the modern era. The most popular applications are early and, I would argue, fundamentally flawed. Take Twitter, which is probably the most visible example of both the good and bad of the modern internet. On the good side: I can look down on my phone and see the most interesting... See more
The first and obvious reason Shopify is doing this is that Shopify’s goal has always been to “arm the rebels”. One of the primary ways it does that is to provide the benefits of scale and sophistication to smaller merchants. And Shopify Audiences is just another way to do that.