About thirty years ago, Jerry Shereshewsky invented “Cyber Monday” as an alternative to Black Friday. The idea was that you’d wait until you got to work on Monday after the Thanksgiving break (where there was high speed internet and you wanted to avoid doing drudge work) to do your shopping from your desk. After all, who wants to get trampled at a big box store?

Of course, since then, the hype machine that is Black Friday has shifted its focus from mobs in the store to mobs online. And the media is still all in in promoting the orgy of consumption and fake deals that happens today.

We’re still going to shop for the holidays. A Boston real estate blog post probably isn’t going to change that. But perhaps we can counter the downward spiral of Amazon’s recommendations, fake reviews and search ads with some AI knowledge of our own.

Updated: Boston Real Estate Blog 2025