When I bought a mattress in 2018, the company that sold it to me sent me a few emails. "Thank you for your purchase." "Your order is on the way." "We'd love your feedback." You know, that sort of thing. The nature of our email correspondence was completely one-sided, since I never answered any of them, but it was about what you'd expect, and it didn't bother me in the least. Then one day, this correspondence began to take a turn. From then on, my life would ... well, it would remain exactly the same. But let's examine an alternate history in which it did not.