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Are there any negative externalities from this? If ad fraud is a self-contained cat-and-mouse game between Google and bots, I'm fine with watching from the sidelines.

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The costs of advertising are ultimately paid by consumers who buy advertised products. If money is wasted by paying bots to watch ads, you can expect consumers to pay a bit more since it drives up the cost.

Prices aren't -that- efficient. The expected cost of advertising is already baked into the profit margins for large companies, it only hurts smaller ones.

Google doesn’t lose from this (other than brand value), since Google just arbitrages between advertisers and webadmins. Unfortunately, the ‘solution’ to this cat-and-mouse game is increased targeting and surveillance, allowing advertisers to selectively target likely customers from bots.

If we want to wean off of this surveillance economy, both consumers (via ad block) and companies (via organic demand) need to leave the platform. Otherwise we will end up with scams to fill either side of the market. Consumers with Adblock get replaced with bots, companies get replaced by Taboola-style clickbait.

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