Google is illegally monopolizing online advertising tech, judge rules

I don't think this article explains it well. Google sells ad space on behalf of the publishers and also sells the ads on behalf of the advertisers. It also runs the auction that places the ads into the ad space. See this graphic https://images.app.goo.gl/ADx5xrAnWNicgoFu7. Parts of this can definately be broken up without destroying Google.

When a media buyer puts $1.00 in on one side of the system, on average only $0.60 makes it to the publisher. In some cases less than $0.50 gets to them.

Advertising is an intentionally complex system so that companies can clip the ticket at multiple stages throughout the process. Google should be broken up, but the whole ad tech system needs to go into the bin if these problems are going to ever get fixed.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/augustinefou/2021/02/15/how-muc...

As someone who has worked in AdTech I would respectfully disagree. It is indeed complex but it is incredibly efficient. Also it is irrelevant of whether publisher earns 75% or 30% of the total revenue. What matters is how much they are earning compared to the next best alternative.

Some companies like Google are incredible at this. Google is not a "monopoly" in this space. In fact the world has far too many Google equivalents but absolutely no one comes close to Google in generating top dollars for publishers. I am saying this after working for 10+ years competing against Google.

Thankfully HN is finally at a stage people can come out and talk about Ad tech without being harassed or attacked.

Could you explain more on this. What do you think makes Google Ad or DoubleClick so special? And

>What matters is how much they are earning compared to the next best alternative.

Correct me if I am wrong, you are suggesting even if publisher only earns 30% of the revenue they still earn more than on other alternative platform?

I am on the purchasing side. Google is very efficient when delivering traffic especially their Max Performance product. Probably the cheapest of all platforms. So they are serving relevant ads to users who engage with the ads. This is win for me and I assume also a win for publishers who get revenue due to higher engagement.

Also users should benefit because they are getting relevant ads. Linear tv is notorious for non relevant ads like all the drug ads for conditions you don’t have. If you’re forced to see ads, wouldn’t you want ads that are relevant?

No, I personally want to see ads that are as irrelevant as possible. I hate getting a sales pitch forced on me, and would rather see something funny or entertaining showing off an irrelevant product in a clever way than whatever your customers want to shove in front of my eyes.

This is why I block all ads, but still appreciate super bowl commercials.

And I have discovered that this actually works on me. I like the Nike ads, so on the occasions when I buy sportswear, I have positive feelings about Nike stuff. I spend 100-10000x more on stuff that isn't sportswear, but I think Nike gets more value from me watching that ad than anyone who advertises some "relevant" SaaS product or whatnot.

This doesn’t make sense.

Why would any advertiser pay the same in such a scenario?

They would obviously value your attention much less on average if that was a hard limit.

It doesn't make sense financially. But money is not the only thing that matters.

My emotions matter. If I see a scary person who is not my friend, I yell "put him down" in my head, and take actions.

If that scary person knows more about me than I know about myself. I bark like a small dog. Arf! Arf! Arf! In English, that roughly translates to "Get out of my sight! Get out of my head! Then I'll feel fine again."

If this doesn't make sense to you, then you are suggesting a world where money/truth matter more than emotions. But then why do people make money, if not just to survive? Arf! Arf! Arf! (This originally translated to: "Don't engage with me unless you value low-status people")

This still doesn’t make sense.

Since everyone values emotions differently... there would still need to be some intermediary, like money, for emotions to have any agreed upon value at all beyond narrow circles.

Otherwise what’s stopping, e.g. nihlists, from valuing your emotions at zero or a negative value?