> Genuine questions: what can be done in a democratic setting to stop him?

Thiel is only "relevant" because he's wealthy.

In a system that allows wealth to equal political power, systematically weakening the impact of wealth on civic and political systems is an effective method. Whether that can be done in America, with the current understanding of the constitution and the current philosophy that many take towards taxation/wealth is questionable; but the idea that we can do nothing is just not true. We don't need to slide back into an era of 19th century robber barons and pseudo-aristocracy. If we do, it's because we largely gave up or allowed it to happen.

A lot of city governments no longer really focus on the day-to-day living experience in their city. Instead, they focus on property value and the discovery of increasingly palatable ways to limit or justify raising property taxes in order to stay in power.

If you take a "brisk" 20 minute walk every day, you'll meet the recommended weekly amount of aerobic exercise for Americans. (I think people should do more.)

The actual amount you need to exercise, or the intensity, is not very big. The good thing with exercise is also that once you make it a habit to walk, say, 20 minutes a day, then walking 25 minutes a day becomes pretty trivial, and so on.

Maybe I'm unique in this experience, but the "actually more relevant to me" part is just never true. Most of the ads I see that are delivered via these auctions are just garbage or scams or "relevant" in a tenuous pointless way.

The only really relevant ads I've seen are from blogs that literally just sell ad space to brands and the ad is just a simple image link you can click on. Philosophy blog? Philosophy book ad. High end men's clothing blog? High end men's clothing brand ad.

If one guy can make it, then another guy could probably too. That's how cities used to have sometimes 3 or 4 competing papers.