Amazon's and Facebook's ad revenue have gone up significantly in the past quarter, so this is not a story about the decline of the online ad business. It is about Google not competing in that business as well as it used to.
15% growth on 130 Billion is 19.5 Billion.
Aka Google's yearly growth is larger than all of Amazon's Ad rev.
Google lacks that luxury.
The point being that, at least on its own platforms, Amazon's interest is in sales generation, not ads turnover. Direct comparisons between Amazon and Google ads misses the point.
But that made me realize: Amazon's profit lies with AWS, the infrastructure that was originally for their ecommerce operation. But their ecommerce has forced many other retailers to streamline their operations... I wonder how many ended up using AWS as part of that effort.
At least on Facebook I feel like I personally have a little more control over how/when/where my ads will appear as opposed to Google's process where much of it is dictated by their algorithms. Not a fan of Facebook still but I can totally see why their ad products are working well for some businesses.