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Comment by noxer | Hacker News Reader

The online ads business is collapsing. I predicted that some years ago and now the first signs become visible. First data collecting will be come harder and harder because people simply don't want that anymore. Then if targeted ads are no longer possible we have a level playing field again where everyone can deliver ads not just the big players. And finally if ads do no longer pay for everything on the net we will finally put a piece tag on commercial stuff.

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I think the online ad business is collapsing (collapsing might be a strong word, but there's definitely a bubble bursting and the market needing a big readjustment) not because of technical problems but simply because people have a certain amount of time and attention and anything beyond that is a waste of money. The advertising industry unfortunately did not understand that and most people are saturated with ads (crappy, low-quality ones for the most part too) and learned to tune them out or outright block them. This may not have happened if the ad quantity remained reasonable.

Understand that the ad industry isn't a monolith. The advertisers shoveling shit ads onto local news websites aren't making some grand bargain for short term revenue at the expense of long term consequences (blocking, etc.). Those advertisers simply wouldn't exist otherwise. They're filling a small niche while they can. The fact that their behavior might cause the whole industry problems over the long term does not matter to them.

Google, FB, et al would love it if these shitware ads disappeared because fewer people would feel the need to block ads. But there's really nothing they can do about it without being shouted down (or worse) as being anticompetitive, regardless of whether that's true or not in this case (and there probably is some truth to it).

> But there's really nothing they can do about it without being shouted down (or worse) as being anticompetitive

Why would enforcing a standard of quality (to keep user's trust by not showing them shit ads) be considered anti-competitive? Google already bans entire industries from advertising and are fine with that, why would enforcing a level of quality (and raising prices to offset the cost of human review) be anticompetitive?

Truth is that neither Google nor Facebook care as long as they get paid.

To be honest, as an internet user, nothing of value will be lost. Wikipedia will survive, my favorite torrent tracker will persist, and so on. But as a SWE who has grown fat on the advertising largesse, I will suffer. And so will most of you.

Did you predict other stuff too?

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