The Ad-Based Internet Is About to Collapse

I'm conflicted when it comes to online advertising, I understand and somewhat agree with the privacy and antitrust argunents of the author.

BUT

Advertising works and online advertising, especially targeted adds using those dreaded opaque algorithms, works very very well.

If I have a product I want to sell, I use and happily pay for online adds, the morality or purity of the web really doesn't make a difference. If the cost of the add is less than it's benifit to my company, I am not concerned with how the add revenue is divided and wether that division is fair or not.

The internet advertising industry may be about to collapse. But I don't think the add based internet is going anywhere as long as the bottom line for the add purchasers is met.

I am absolutely convinced by the argument around the needs and such, much less about the imminent collapse, Fraud and unreliability of the digital ads is not new, it is not even a bug, it is a feature of the people who work in advertising; they oversell the capabilities because there is a lag between old and new guard in that field. Simply put, it is only but a decade old, and the people who taught and got taught did not know how to handle this new tool resulting in a big divide between expectations and reality that has hurt (justifiably) the whole industry and will continue to hurt. But this is it not enough in my opinion to call it over.

Amen