16 ms·

The $300B Google-Meta advertising duopoly is under attack

629 points by acconrad 4y ago

seibelj 4y ago
One reason I’m highly skeptical to claims of monopolies, especially in an industry as dynamic and volatile as tech, is in 5 years you already have competition from new upstarts (TikTok) and old hands (Apple and Amazon) that makes claims of digital advertising “dominance” by Google and Meta outdated. The monopoly claims were suspicious from the beginning but now it looks pretty absurd.
- encryptluks2 4y ago
  The claims of monopoly have always been political. The only company that comes close to a monopoly is Apple due to them locking out third-party apps on their phones.
  - trhway 4y ago
    "Monopoly" is just a shorthand for a range of market dominance abuse. I.e. if an 800lb gorilla abuses you, it doesn't really matter that there are several others 600-700 lb gorillas ready to do the same to you. https://ethique.rexel.com/en/competition-law/abuse-of-a-dominant-position/ https://ethique.rexel.com/en/competition-law/abuse-of-a-domi... "A dominant position is not defined merely by market share, but by classification as a market leader. Typically, a company is considered to hold a dominant position if it has a market share of more than 40%, but even a market share of 15% may be considered dominant if it is the largest player in a fragmented market. "
    - blululu 4y ago
      Monopoly literally means a single seller. Duopolies and oligopolies are distinct both in theory and practice.
      - nvrspyx 4y ago
        I think they're saying that the word "monopoly" is used colloquially, by many, to simply mean dominant position and that those people don't mean the literal definition. It seems they're just trying to say that the parent comment is arguing about the definition of monopoly rather than the actual point, which is dominant position abuse. I agree that it's important to recognize the differences between monopolies, duopolies, and oligopolies in theory and practice, as you say, but I also don't think that using the wrong term nullifies validity of the actual point.
      - pessimizer 4y ago
        Fine, bring back "trust" if you prefer an archaic precision. Antitrust is about trusts, not monopolies.
    - InCityDreams 4y ago
      Did you[r quote] somehow confuse 'monopoly' with 'dominant'?
- zo1 4y ago
  Unfortunately, in the meantime, the "monopoly" has done huge and world-or-population scale damage in some way. Just think of how the industry has been affected (potentially negatively) by the heavy push and funding by big tech giants of technologies such as React, Angular, and Kubernetes?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- rabuse 4y ago
  TikTok was only able to compete so quickly because it's literally sponsored and funded by the CCP.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    As if the others aren't government supported and coddled monopolies.
  - lossolo 4y ago
    TikTok is better product than Youtube shorts or Instagram reels, money have nothing to do with it, especially while FAANG have more money than ByteDance.
    - winnie_ua 4y ago
      You forget, that YT shorts appeared after TT emergence. It was a try from Google to get some part of TT success. To be honest, I didn't use TT. Ecept when someone gives me direct link. But I am using YTshorts, coz I am already at youtube watching long vids. Pretty addictive this shorts are. I hate TT for trying to force me into registering. Also I hate TT for baning porn and even erotic couple tears ago.
  - largepeepee 4y ago
    That's like saying every SV tech company is funded by the CIA. Oh wait..
- cush 4y ago
  They can and have swayed elections at the turn of a dial...
13324 4y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20220918181734/https://www.economist.com/business/2022/09/18/the-300bn-google-meta-advertising-duopoly-is-under-attack https://web.archive.org/web/20220918181734/https://www.econo...
hardware2win 4y ago
Are MSFT and Apple safest faangs rn?
- Q6T46nT668w6i3m 4y ago
  Yes, but I don’t think there’s been a moment where they were not the safest.
  - SkyMarshal 4y ago
    Well except for when Apple lost most of their market share and almost went bankrupt.
    - deepstack 4y ago
      Yup there were even Mac clones then, MS actually came in saved Apple at one point.
    - samwillis 4y ago
      That was very much pre FAANG as a construct. Apple, since it’s second coming, has never be in an unsafe position.
      - ThrowawayR2 4y ago
        Apple is focused on consumer products and consumers can be fickle. While it won't be anytime soon, it's not impossible for Apple to someday lose the design mojo that makes their products popular. Steve Jobs and his RDF aren't there anymore and neither is Jony Ive.
        scarface74 4y ago
        Creating hardware at scale is hard. What company do you think will be able to duplicate Apple’s infrastructure, manufacturing, chip design, retail, etc? Not to mention that even with “great design” any Android phone is still stuck with being Android and the lack of integration between software, hardware and ecosystem.
nixcraft 4y ago
Is it just me, or do major tech companies turn into advertising businesses even for paid products like Windows OS[1] or iPhone/iOS[2]? [1] https://www.makeuseof.com/windows-11-remove-ads/ https://www.makeuseof.com/windows-11-remove-ads/ [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-08-14/apple-aapl-set-to-expand-advertising-bringing-ads-to-maps-tv-and-books-apps-l6tdqqmg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-08-14/apple-...
- ur-whale 4y ago
  >Is it just me, or do major tech companies turn into advertising businesses The fact that matchmakers always make way more money than the makers is not a new phenomenon. As a matter of fact, I'd wager that it's been this way since the day man invented barter.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    All of retail is in a way a matchmaker. Cosco doesn't make the goods they sell - they are just being an intermediary between you and the the manufacturer. An intermediary that takes a 60+% fee for their work.
    - hsnewman 4y ago
      Costco has a variety of products the make, chicken, pizza etc.
    - hk__2 4y ago
      > Cosco doesn't make the goods they sell - they are just being an intermediary between you and the the manufacturer. An intermediary that takes a 60+% fee for their work. It can take such "fee" because it’s so enormous that it can negociate prices in a way you couldn’t, as well as handling the logistics and having lots of different products at the same place. It’s not "just an intermediary", it’s an intermediary that adds value. If you want to eat a yogurt, would you prefer paying $4 a pack of four at Costco or $1500 for 4000 yogurts you have to transport from the manufacturer to your home with your own truck?
retskrad 4y ago
Is there a way to bypass the firewall and view the article?
- laserlight 4y ago
  Yes, see this comment for instance [0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=32890467 https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=32890467
- rcMgD2BwE72F 4y ago
  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bypass-paywalls-clean/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bypass-paywal...
- jeffbee 4y ago
  The Economist is available at every magazine stand and most public libraries in America.
DethNinja 4y ago
One problem is that bot amount on the internet is now far larger than the golden days of internet advertising. Real-Life ads became competitive with internet advertising. In fact, they might be better for a large number companies. Unless they can manage to guarantee that ads are being seen by real humans, I think their revenue will keep dropping.
- frozenport 4y ago
  Many people were paying for SEO, which you can still buy today
deleted 4y ago
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endisneigh 4y ago
monopoly aside the bigger threat is prolonged stagflation in the economy which will result in dramatic consumer pullback which will kill the RoI of advertising. of course, this will hurt far more than Google and Meta
baxtr 4y ago
The article is based on… nothing? And a bit of TikTok mania? I thought this was really low quality in essence - providing no real proof for any substantial change.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  Did you miss the graph in the article? Key quote: > For Meta and Google’s corporate parent, Alphabet, the cyclical problem may not be the worst of it. They might once have hoped to offset the digital-ad pie’s slower growth by grabbing a larger slice of it. No longer. Although the two are together expected to rake in around $300bn in revenues this year, sales of their four biggest rivals in the West will amount to almost a quarter as much. If that does not sound like a lot, it is nevertheless giving the incumbents reason to worry. Five years ago most of those rivals were scarcely in the ad business at all (see chart).
  - baxtr 4y ago
    So that’s saying: - today: Google and FB have 75% of all sales combined and those other rivals have 25% - 5 years ago: those other rivals had 0% What does this say about the market share of FB and google 5 years ago? Nothing. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Maybe it was 90%. Maybe it was 75%! But hey, whatever, let’s publish that clickbait article.
    - crazygringo 4y ago
      It's an article about potential competitive threats to Google-Meta, not a survey of the entire online advertising industry. The rise of potential competitors is not "nothing". "Clickbait" can be used with a lot of publications. But in the list of publications it can be applied to... I'd say the Economist would be ranked about dead last. Maybe tied with Der Spiegel.
      - baxtr 4y ago
        The title is: “the ad duopoly is under attack”. The term duopoly describes how the market is split: two companies make up the biggest chunk. The article provides no evidence that the market structure has changed. See my comment. A clickbait can be used by any publication. Apparently, including The Economist.
warinukraine 4y ago
samwillis 4y ago
To some extent I disagree with this, not that Google+Meta are under attack, but that the threat is coming from competitors. I’ve spent most of the last 10 years earning my living from an e-commerce business I own. The online advertising industry is unrecognisable from when we started. My thesis, in beef, is that the industries excessive uses of personalised data and tracking lead to increased regulation, and then a massive pivot to even more “AI” as a means to circumvent that (to some extent). The AI in the ad industry now, I believe, is detrimental to the advertiser. It’s now just one big black box, you put money in one side and get traffic out the other. The control and useful tracking (what actual search terms people are using, proper visible conversion tracking of an ad) is now almost non-existent. As an advertiser your livelihood is dependant on an algorithm, not skill, not intuition, not experience, not even track record. Facebook, Google and the rest of the industry were so driven by profit at all cost, and at the expense of long term thinking, they shot themselves in the foot. Advertisers are searching for alternatives, but they are all the same. I think online advertising, as a whole, is probably f***ed…
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ls15 4y ago
  > Facebook, Google and the rest of the industry were so driven by profit at all cost, and at the expense of long term thinking, they shot themselves in the foot. As far as I know, the technical term for that is greed.
- civilized 4y ago
  > My thesis, in beef This is a delightful turn of phrase. I wonder if it was deliberate or an autocorrect happy accident.
  - samwillis 4y ago
    I really hate iPhone autocorrect…
  - hestefisk 4y ago
imiric 4y ago
The entire advertising industry should burn down, as far as I'm concerned. Advertising ruins every form of media it touches. From radio, television, newspapers (it's arguably responsible for killing journalism), and now the internet, and all the services we use it for. Web search is useless because of it. Most websites are pretty much spyware. A large percentage of them are SEO spam, existing only to serve ads. Most content on YouTube, the largest video platform, is unwatchable due to constant ad breaks and sponsored content. Astroturfing is everywhere, promoted posts flood social media sites. Advertising is instrumental to spreading of disinformation, propaganda, toppling of democracies and companies like Cambridge Analytica. And if all that wasn't enough, _paid_ subscription services have started serving ads. It's the same business model from TV, but even more intrusive and lucrative since user tracking and microtargetting is now possible. Stop. Just stop. Users want none of this. Of course, everyone loves getting services for free, but what adtech companies are getting in exchange for user data now is worth much more than the "free" services they offer. *They should be paying us instead.* We need new business models that are as easy for content providers to implement, yet don't come at the expense of user experience, and don't cause services to deteriorate into a privacy nightmare. This should be easier nowadays with cryptocurrencies. I still think the Basic Attention Token[1] is a step in the right direction. Are there more examples of this? [1]: https://basicattentiontoken.org/ https://basicattentiontoken.org/
- riku_iki 4y ago
  > The entire advertising industry should burn down, as far as I'm concerned. but they perform important economy function: connect buyers and sellers..
  - imiric 4y ago
    > but they perform important economy function: connect buyers and sellers.. Do they? I've never once clicked on an ad and made a purchase, and I'm a fairly regular consumer. If I have a need for a product, I'll search for it. All advertising does is create a false desire to own a product by psychologically manipulating the viewer. It is dishonest by definition. In order to make a purchase, I first have to have a need for a product. This should arise naturally, not via some artifically produced desire. Then I'd like to read the true specifications of all suitable products that I can find, and read hopefully real and honest reviews by people who've purchased them. After that, I will narrow down my search and will only make a purchase if I think a specific product will fulfill my needs. Advertising directly interferes with this concept, steps in as a middle man between buyer and seller, and introduces all kinds of psychological tricks to manipulate me to not even make the purchase--I just need to click on an ad, and I make the advertiser money. It is unnecessary at best, and outright harmful at worst.
franczesko 4y ago
It's not a duopoly - it's a cartel: "a combination of independent commercial or industrial enterprises designed to limit competition or fix prices"
phendrenad2 4y ago
The advertising duopoly is a crown with no kingdom in 2022. Online advertising is dead - most people online aren't worth advertising too. This isn't 2010 when most people online were from wealthy countries. Google and Facebook are having a harder and harder time finding high-net-worth individuals to advertise too, because they all use adblock or avoid the open internet, preferring to stick to walled gardens like reddit and tiktok (which serve their own ads).
- visarga 4y ago
  That's also because they have to sell things we don't need to buy, 99.9% of the time. They don't have an offer for what I would buy today, they offer me something completely unrelated. The ads are not helpful. But if they focused on helpful ads their profits would be too small. Google once had the right approach - showing ads related to the search terms. It was polite and nicely delineated. But that wasn't going to earn them money from unrelated ad campaigns.
- adventured 4y ago
  > Online advertising is dead Everything you just said is voided by the fact that Google's ad business continues to boom. It's going nowhere. And I say that as someone that dislikes Google. Your pitch is emotionalism, I've been reading rants like that on HN for the past ~15 years. They're in practically every thread on Google or advertising. Meanwhile Google has gotten 17 times larger in that span of time. Their business has doubled in size since the beginning of 2019. Their operating income has skyrocketed. When did the death struggle begin for them exactly?
  - candiddevmike 4y ago
    Google booming doesn't necessarily mean OP is wrong. Go read some PPC forums and you'll see a pretty consistent trend on ad ROI going down everywhere. Folks may just be spending more trying to spend their way back to a low CPA.
  - QuarterReptile 4y ago
    So, maybe the rot is there, but it hasn't quite died? And even then, we'll need the strong storm to knock it over.
seshagiric 4y ago
I work in online search and recently expanded. In my opinion there are two major threats to Google and Facebook (I.e., ads related threats): 1. Platform power: Apple was a key supplier to Facebook in the sense that they provide platform driving a significant % of their Ads revenue. With Apple tightening privacy they have become an indirect but significant threat to Facebook. Google is relatively safe. 2. Threat of substitutes: as seen in Amazon, Ecom platforms are much closer to the customer. Us timer is about to make a purchase. I think over time Advertisers will eventually shift to platforms like amazon, Etsy etc so that can reach the customer right when they are about to make a purchase. Some what same appeal with snap and TikTok. Overall online ad industry will continue to flourish but will see big changes in who are the big players.
- xyst 4y ago
  the day the ad industry dies, we will all be better off
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    What replaces it? People aren't going to host content for free. I hate ads too, but we have to be pragmatic about monetization; platforms like YouTube literally cannot exist without advertising to subsidize the insane architectural cost. The solution is proper oversight. We've gone too long without regulating advertisements, app stores and video platforms, and we've witnessed the consequences. It's time that we put the interests of the people before FAANG shareholders and HN pundits.
    - oezi 4y ago
      > platforms like YouTube literally cannot exist without advertising Why? If you consider Netflix without the cost of content creation, then less than 1 USD per month per user would cover the infrastructure cost just fine. Maybe cents suffice. Youtube is just one big profit center for Alphabet.
      - jsnell 4y ago
greatpostman 4y ago
YouTube and Facebook tune their recommendation algorithms for censorship and ad profit. This left a massive gap in their product, which was filled by tiktok. Capitalism is at work here
rs999gti 4y ago
Unless these competitors have something groundbreaking, Google and Meta can counter by undercutting ad spend pricing or acquiring potential rivals
- wharfjumper 4y ago
  The main rivals referred to are Amazon, Microsoft and Apple so acquisition doesn't seem a realistic option.
- wharfjumper 4y ago
  Since Apple, Microsoft and Amazon revenue mostly comes from non ad sources, a price war would weaken AlphaMeta relatively.
hey2022 4y ago
A somewhat tangential question. Why is Alphabet not decoupling Google from Google Ads / Google AdSense? Having Google’s name constantly in the news cycle because of their ad practices has ruined their reputation (deservingly). Wouldn’t a separate legal entity also be a safer approach from the legal perspective in the light of the ongoing antitrust investigations?
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  Because Google would then become a business with virtually no revenue - and no chance of producing revenue. Even though Alphabet itself would remain just as profitable, a business organization can't survive long if its goals are not in some ways associated with producing revenue, by the nature of how corporate politics work.
  - asdff 4y ago
    Maybe if google wasn't so beholden on the ad revenue, they could pursue more interesting opportunities for revenue. Imagine a first rate aws competiter that wasn't Azure and the headache that system is in comparison. that alone would generate conversions overnight. Then you can use some of that infrastructure you've just built and your customers are paying for to run your own science division that could research anything and everything with free compute.
    - int_19h 4y ago
      But they don't care about opportunities; they care about revenue, and they already have plenty of that, guaranteed.
      - asdff 4y ago
        If you have basically a free money generator, why aren't you putting that in a room to run and make its free money while you work on a second or third free money generator?
        4y ago
dgudkov 4y ago
We know already how they will optimize to compete - more surveillance, more algorithms, and more annoyance.
torginus 4y ago
Somebody always brings this point up so it might as well be me this time - but does advertising work at all, particularly online advertising? I refuse to believe I'm some kind of one of a kind special snowflake, but whenever I wanna buy something cheap or disposable, like food, socks etc. I just see it and buy it. On the other hand when I'm looking for something I'm planning to get a bit more mileage out of, like a laptop, a pair of headphones or a cordless drill, I usually read the reviews and buy the product I think is most appropriate for me, not what the ads show.
- sircastor 4y ago
  What I find most amusing is the amazon and brand ads I see on Facebook. Amazon is trying to sell me dental office equipment, or specialized restaurant tools, and a dozen other things that few outside of a particular area of expertise would remotely consider. It’s bizarre.
- cryptoegorophy 4y ago
  It works. It works a lot better than you think. My biggest mistake was relying on organic traffic. Once I switched to paid ads business went 10x. Don’t assume everyone is like you, you are the 1% of the 1% of the 1%. Majority people follow ads that’s why it still exists.
  - amelius 4y ago
    Ok, but it works for the wrong reasons. I.e., people buy stuff they wouldn't buy if they got honest information. It works against the main argument in favor of the free market: not the best product wins, but the one with the biggest advertising budget.
    - bolt7469 4y ago
      Tracking users with online advertising is actually a good thing for economic efficiency. People tend to see more relevant products, and are able to allocate their resources to products that better meet their needs. The best ads aren't lying to people.
siliconc0w 4y ago
If you search for socks and someone shows you a promoted ad for socks, you are likely trading relevance for money as the best sock for that person is unlikely to be the most promoted one. This works in the short term but ultimately what should happen (and currently doesn't) is users then use a search or retail platform that gives them more relevant results. Second is using my search for socks elsewhere on the platform. This is essentially using user-data outside of the intent it was given and that should be controllable by the user and default to the most conservative option without annoying dialogue boxes or other harassment. Whether it's within the platform or not shouldn't make a difference. So competition is good, but unfortunately what I'm taking away from this that companies are going to bake more ads into their products because the products themselves aren't seeing much competitive pressure (except maybe for Meta and rightfully so).
- cetahfh14615 4y ago
  > as the best sock for that person is unlikely to be the most promoted one. not necessarily. I don't see how there could be a correlation between the two. When you see "sponsored" on a listing, that doesn't tell you how much the vendor paid. Also many large and reputable vendors will pay simply to guarantee they are at the top of the listing. For the vendors that don't sponsor, you don't know whether the amount they save goes into a higher quality product > This is essentially using user-data outside of the intent it was given and that should be controllable by the user and default to the most conservative option without annoying dialogue boxes or other harassment. Except feeding user data back into the system makes certain things technically possible that weren't possible before. Do you think modern map applications would have the same degree of accuracy if they weren't able to use user data to improve it? > Whether it's within the platform or not shouldn't make a difference. It does make a difference because keeping it within the platform could be used to improve the platform itself. Sending it outside the platform could be used for more malicious purposes. In the map application example, the user knows their data feeds into improved accuracy. But they don't know where that data goes outside the platform
  - Closi 4y ago
    > For the vendors that don't sponsor, you don't know whether the amount they save goes into a higher quality product. For the vendors that don't sponsor, you don't know whether the amount they save goes into a higher quality product. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. But for the vendors that DO sponsor, you definetly know that the money didn't go into a higher quality product. Some eCommerce companies who are agressively using Google/FB/Social will spend 30%+ of their revenue just on online/influencer advertising (based on companies I have worked with).
UltraViolence 4y ago
There are always threats, but these companies being paranoid, are always on the lookout for competitors. Facebook in the past had success defusing the threat by simply copying the competitor's app verbatim (Snapchat) and is trying to repeat this by altering both Facebook and Instagram to work like TikTok. The reason I see TikTok as a threat is largely because the company ignores all the rules and regulations that protect the privacy of minors and adults alike and companies will want that data regardless. Facebook won't be able to supply it to them since it has to abide by our laws. OTOH TikTok being based in a nations that's a strategic competitor to the U.S. may well mean the company is simply banned. IMHO it would be more fortuitous for Meta and Google to lobby for a ban. Fighting TikTok will not work.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
montpeliervt 4y ago
No has mentioned Subprime Attention Crisis yet. It’s worth reading. The whole thing is a hyper-inflated, opaque house of cards, and its collapse will cause a lot of pain.
1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago
Finally, an archive.org URL at the top instead of archive.ph. Nice one. The later has a "bot protection" page that looks like Cloudflare's but someone suggested it is not. Makes sense because archive.today and Cloudflare were in a spat some time ago. Archive.today wanted to allow monitoring of users' locations, e.g., via EDNS Client Subnet, but Cloudflare did not send ECS. Unlike Archive.today, Internet Archive does not try to force users to enable Javascript or make them solve CAPTCHAs. Nor does Common Crawl. It is interesting to contrast the Internet Archive (IA) with Archive.today. The later is vague about how it is funded and admits it could sell out to advertisers in the future.^1 There is obviously no small amount of data it could collect about user interests and behaviours that could be used to support advertising. For example, what usage data does it store, if any. What are the Terms of Use for that data. There are no public statements about any restrictions on what the website operator can do. The operator invites users to "Ask me anything" but AFAICT the website has no Privacy Policy. The operator admits it sends the client's IP in a X-Forwarded-For HTTP header. This is not something one would experience with IA. The server hosting the page being archived receives an IA IP address as the client IP address, not an IA user's IP address. IA has a Privacy Policy, last updated in 2001.^2 Unlike Archive.today, I feel reasonably confident IA wil not sell out to commercial interests but who knows. 1. From Archive.today's FAQ: How is the archive funded? It is privately funded; there are no complex finances behind it. It may look more or less reliable compared to startup-style funding or a university project, depending on which risks are taken into account. Will advertising appear on the archive one day ? I cannot make a promise that it will not. With the current growth rate I am able to keep the archive free of ads. Well, I can promise it will have no ads at least till the end of 2014. 2. YMMV, but IME but the fewer "updates" to a Privacy Policy over time the better.
- blenton 4y ago
  > The operator admits it sends the client's IP in a X-Forwarded-For HTTP header. You can easily test this. You will find that, actually, it does not send this header. Or the client's IP address in any other way.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago
  Correction: FAQ states client IP address (instead of Archive.today IP address) is sent but not in a X-Forwarded-For header. Archive.today FAQ: Do you preserve archivers' privacy? E.g. not disclose the source IP address? Yes. But take in mind that when you archive a page, your IP is being sent to the the website you archive as though you are using a proxy (in X-Forwarded-For header). This feature allows websites (e.g shops or the sites with weather forecast) target your region, not mine. https://web.archive.org/web/20220913195108if_/https://archive.ph/faq https://web.archive.org/web/20220913195108if_/https://archiv...
mensetmanusman 4y ago
It’s an interesting issue because it is probably Apple’s fault. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/small-businesses-count-cost-of-apples-privacy-changes/?amp=1 https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/small-businesses-cou... Apple accidentally attacked small businesses that used to rely on geographically relevant advertising by increasing privacy protection. There is no easy solution here.
- wussboy 4y ago
  All that geographically relevant advertising could go back to how it was before Facebook/Google became the only way to do it. It seem an easy-enough solution to me.
mensetmanusman 4y ago
Everyone here likely works for a company that advertises. It might be in our individual best interest to have super effective advertising (for increased revenue), but it might be in the world’s interest to not allow that, because effective advertising leads to consumption… (and for privacy reasons,etc.)
- incompatible 4y ago
  "Everyone" is usually going to be a stretch. I know it's not true, in this case.
karmasimida 4y ago
Good thing isn't? They have been sleeping while making money. Now it's time to wake-up and do some serious innovation or become irrelevant
throwaway892238 4y ago
The only thing I will miss when Google eventually dies is Google Maps. Can somebody make a paid version of it please?
- rieTohgh6 4y ago
  Google Maps reduced free tiers and raised prices for access to its APIs few years ago - so maybe it is profitable on its own, at least core parts. Some people moved to use OSM but its quality varies between areas. There probably is no way to make StreetView profitable
  - asdff 4y ago
    >There probably is no way to make StreetView profitable Replace the operator and the subaru with a drone then the prospects change. With a single drone flying a programmed route at 20mph during daylight you'd have mapped the ~22000 miles of maintained roads in Los Angeles in under 100 days. Maybe you could contract with city vehicles who would like to have street view maps of their cities, and just stick the cameras on garbage trucks and the like and have the bulk of the area mapped before long over the course of their regular job duties coming into different areas.
osigurdson 4y ago
I’ve never really understood how such a large portion of google’s revenues are derived from search. I’ve rarely clicked on any ads when using google or any other search engine. YouTube, in my opinion, is far more effective as users are forced to watch 5 second ads prior to watching the video that they are interested in. 5 seconds is too short to context switch and can also convey a lot of information.
- yakaccount4 4y ago
  Neither have I clicked on any Google ads. I suppose the sheer volume of searches made on Google make up for a 0.000001% click rate (made up number, but point stands).
- kumarvvr 4y ago
  The important part is "rarely clicked". Meaning, you have sometimes clicked on it. Spread that click amongst billions of users, and you have a good revenue stream.
  - osigurdson 4y ago
    To quantify it a bit more, I think I only click on google search ads on the order of once per year. Contrast that with YouTube, where I probably watch 1000 ads per year on that platform.
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  I think most people click the ad more than you. A lot of companies advertise on their own keyword so I’ll click the ad then for example if I want to charge the company.
pdevr 4y ago
Misleading title. The heading implies both Google and Meta are threatened, but the article discusses the emerging competition to Meta, like Snapchat, Tiktok, and Apple. There is no mention of a search competitor to Google. There is no mention of any concrete threat to Google from the competition, either, other than implying they will also be affected by the general trend. Google may very well face competition from device manufacturers and the like, but this article does not provide any details about it whatsoever.
- zwkrt 4y ago
  Google isn’t being threatened by a search competitor they’re being threatened by attention competitors. The fact that Google provides search results is very much secondary to the fact that they deliver advertisements to eyeballs.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
SimonV123 4y ago
macleginn 4y ago
‘Microsoft’s social network, LinkedIn, is unglamorous but its business-to-business ads allow it to monetise the time users spend on it at a rate roughly four times that of Facebook, estimates Andrew Lipsman of eMarketer. It generates more revenue than some medium-sized networks including Snap’s Snapchat and Twitter. <...> So far [Apple] is only dabbling in ads and does not report sales figures. But Bloomberg reported recently that Apple’s ad business was already generating sales of $4bn a year, making it about as big an ad platform as Twitter.’ Twitter is now a unit of being moderately unsuccessful at advertising.
- cloutchaser 4y ago
  Considering the audience of twitter, which is the elite of society, this is really is an especially bad performance. Twitter advertising should be the highest CPM out there, with the probably wealth and influence level of its audience.
  - enumjorge 4y ago
    > Considering the audience of twitter, which is the elite of society You and I have very different experiences of Twitter
    - samstave 4y ago
      yeah, thats the stupidest thing ive read in a bit... when i interviewed at twitter in ~2006? i was asked what i thought twitter was, and I Replied that it was a "sentiment barometer' They didnt like that.
      - thundergolfer 4y ago
        I’m guessing you don’t use Twitter or follow it much. Of all the major social platforms — FB, Reddit, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram — only Twitter has significant and consistent usage by the intellectual and economic elite.
hnbad 4y ago
If it's a duopoly, why do websites like this one ask me to consent to twenty thousand different ad networks? Of course that's not what the article means, but it's interesting that Google, Meta and TikTok are described as advertising giants when their products ostensibly serve different purposes. I wasn't aware they were comfortable with being so mask-off about the actual nature of what they are, namely vehicles to generate ad impressions.
throwmeback 4y ago
Oh no. Poor Google-Meta advertising duopoly!
r00fus 4y ago
Is it that this is a contraction of the online advertising market, or just the fact that cheap money is gone (corporate paper is no longer free if you want it)?
Raziarazzi 4y ago
There is no ambiguity. This has happened to me with several accounts I've helped manage. When an account has a history of low CTR, the CPC increases. Starting a new campaign does not help; the CPC remains high until the CTR improves. And it's not cheap.

629 points by acconrad 4y ago

One reason I’m highly skeptical to claims of monopolies, especially in an industry as dynamic and volatile as tech, is in 5 years you already have competition from new upstarts (TikTok) and old hands (Apple and Amazon) that makes claims of digital advertising “dominance” by Google and Meta outdated. The monopoly claims were suspicious from the beginning but now it looks pretty absurd.

encryptluks2 4y ago
The claims of monopoly have always been political. The only company that comes close to a monopoly is Apple due to them locking out third-party apps on their phones.
- trhway 4y ago
  "Monopoly" is just a shorthand for a range of market dominance abuse. I.e. if an 800lb gorilla abuses you, it doesn't really matter that there are several others 600-700 lb gorillas ready to do the same to you. https://ethique.rexel.com/en/competition-law/abuse-of-a-dominant-position/ https://ethique.rexel.com/en/competition-law/abuse-of-a-domi... "A dominant position is not defined merely by market share, but by classification as a market leader. Typically, a company is considered to hold a dominant position if it has a market share of more than 40%, but even a market share of 15% may be considered dominant if it is the largest player in a fragmented market. "
  - blululu 4y ago
    Monopoly literally means a single seller. Duopolies and oligopolies are distinct both in theory and practice.
    - nvrspyx 4y ago
      I think they're saying that the word "monopoly" is used colloquially, by many, to simply mean dominant position and that those people don't mean the literal definition. It seems they're just trying to say that the parent comment is arguing about the definition of monopoly rather than the actual point, which is dominant position abuse. I agree that it's important to recognize the differences between monopolies, duopolies, and oligopolies in theory and practice, as you say, but I also don't think that using the wrong term nullifies validity of the actual point.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      Fine, bring back "trust" if you prefer an archaic precision. Antitrust is about trusts, not monopolies.
  - InCityDreams 4y ago
    Did you[r quote] somehow confuse 'monopoly' with 'dominant'?
zo1 4y ago
Unfortunately, in the meantime, the "monopoly" has done huge and world-or-population scale damage in some way. Just think of how the industry has been affected (potentially negatively) by the heavy push and funding by big tech giants of technologies such as React, Angular, and Kubernetes?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
rabuse 4y ago
TikTok was only able to compete so quickly because it's literally sponsored and funded by the CCP.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  As if the others aren't government supported and coddled monopolies.
- lossolo 4y ago
  TikTok is better product than Youtube shorts or Instagram reels, money have nothing to do with it, especially while FAANG have more money than ByteDance.
  - winnie_ua 4y ago
    You forget, that YT shorts appeared after TT emergence. It was a try from Google to get some part of TT success. To be honest, I didn't use TT. Ecept when someone gives me direct link. But I am using YTshorts, coz I am already at youtube watching long vids. Pretty addictive this shorts are. I hate TT for trying to force me into registering. Also I hate TT for baning porn and even erotic couple tears ago.
- largepeepee 4y ago
  That's like saying every SV tech company is funded by the CIA. Oh wait..
cush 4y ago
They can and have swayed elections at the turn of a dial...

13324 4y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20220918181734/https://www.economist.com/business/2022/09/18/the-300bn-google-meta-advertising-duopoly-is-under-attack https://web.archive.org/web/20220918181734/https://www.econo...

hardware2win 4y ago

Are MSFT and Apple safest faangs rn?

Q6T46nT668w6i3m 4y ago
Yes, but I don’t think there’s been a moment where they were not the safest.
- SkyMarshal 4y ago
  Well except for when Apple lost most of their market share and almost went bankrupt.
  - deepstack 4y ago
    Yup there were even Mac clones then, MS actually came in saved Apple at one point.
  - samwillis 4y ago
    That was very much pre FAANG as a construct. Apple, since it’s second coming, has never be in an unsafe position.
    - ThrowawayR2 4y ago
      Apple is focused on consumer products and consumers can be fickle. While it won't be anytime soon, it's not impossible for Apple to someday lose the design mojo that makes their products popular. Steve Jobs and his RDF aren't there anymore and neither is Jony Ive.
      - scarface74 4y ago
        Creating hardware at scale is hard. What company do you think will be able to duplicate Apple’s infrastructure, manufacturing, chip design, retail, etc? Not to mention that even with “great design” any Android phone is still stuck with being Android and the lack of integration between software, hardware and ecosystem.

nixcraft 4y ago

Is it just me, or do major tech companies turn into advertising businesses even for paid products like Windows OS[1] or iPhone/iOS[2]? [1] https://www.makeuseof.com/windows-11-remove-ads/ https://www.makeuseof.com/windows-11-remove-ads/ [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-08-14/apple-aapl-set-to-expand-advertising-bringing-ads-to-maps-tv-and-books-apps-l6tdqqmg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-08-14/apple-...

ur-whale 4y ago
>Is it just me, or do major tech companies turn into advertising businesses The fact that matchmakers always make way more money than the makers is not a new phenomenon. As a matter of fact, I'd wager that it's been this way since the day man invented barter.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- londons_explore 4y ago
  All of retail is in a way a matchmaker. Cosco doesn't make the goods they sell - they are just being an intermediary between you and the the manufacturer. An intermediary that takes a 60+% fee for their work.
  - hsnewman 4y ago
    Costco has a variety of products the make, chicken, pizza etc.
  - hk__2 4y ago
    > Cosco doesn't make the goods they sell - they are just being an intermediary between you and the the manufacturer. An intermediary that takes a 60+% fee for their work. It can take such "fee" because it’s so enormous that it can negociate prices in a way you couldn’t, as well as handling the logistics and having lots of different products at the same place. It’s not "just an intermediary", it’s an intermediary that adds value. If you want to eat a yogurt, would you prefer paying $4 a pack of four at Costco or $1500 for 4000 yogurts you have to transport from the manufacturer to your home with your own truck?

retskrad 4y ago

Is there a way to bypass the firewall and view the article?

laserlight 4y ago
Yes, see this comment for instance [0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=32890467 https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=32890467
rcMgD2BwE72F 4y ago
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bypass-paywalls-clean/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bypass-paywal...
jeffbee 4y ago
The Economist is available at every magazine stand and most public libraries in America.

DethNinja 4y ago

One problem is that bot amount on the internet is now far larger than the golden days of internet advertising. Real-Life ads became competitive with internet advertising. In fact, they might be better for a large number companies. Unless they can manage to guarantee that ads are being seen by real humans, I think their revenue will keep dropping.

frozenport 4y ago
Many people were paying for SEO, which you can still buy today

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

endisneigh 4y ago

monopoly aside the bigger threat is prolonged stagflation in the economy which will result in dramatic consumer pullback which will kill the RoI of advertising. of course, this will hurt far more than Google and Meta

baxtr 4y ago

The article is based on… nothing? And a bit of TikTok mania? I thought this was really low quality in essence - providing no real proof for any substantial change.

crazygringo 4y ago
Did you miss the graph in the article? Key quote: > For Meta and Google’s corporate parent, Alphabet, the cyclical problem may not be the worst of it. They might once have hoped to offset the digital-ad pie’s slower growth by grabbing a larger slice of it. No longer. Although the two are together expected to rake in around $300bn in revenues this year, sales of their four biggest rivals in the West will amount to almost a quarter as much. If that does not sound like a lot, it is nevertheless giving the incumbents reason to worry. Five years ago most of those rivals were scarcely in the ad business at all (see chart).
- baxtr 4y ago
  So that’s saying: - today: Google and FB have 75% of all sales combined and those other rivals have 25% - 5 years ago: those other rivals had 0% What does this say about the market share of FB and google 5 years ago? Nothing. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Maybe it was 90%. Maybe it was 75%! But hey, whatever, let’s publish that clickbait article.
  - crazygringo 4y ago
    It's an article about potential competitive threats to Google-Meta, not a survey of the entire online advertising industry. The rise of potential competitors is not "nothing". "Clickbait" can be used with a lot of publications. But in the list of publications it can be applied to... I'd say the Economist would be ranked about dead last. Maybe tied with Der Spiegel.
    - baxtr 4y ago
      The title is: “the ad duopoly is under attack”. The term duopoly describes how the market is split: two companies make up the biggest chunk. The article provides no evidence that the market structure has changed. See my comment. A clickbait can be used by any publication. Apparently, including The Economist.

warinukraine 4y ago

samwillis 4y ago

To some extent I disagree with this, not that Google+Meta are under attack, but that the threat is coming from competitors. I’ve spent most of the last 10 years earning my living from an e-commerce business I own. The online advertising industry is unrecognisable from when we started. My thesis, in beef, is that the industries excessive uses of personalised data and tracking lead to increased regulation, and then a massive pivot to even more “AI” as a means to circumvent that (to some extent). The AI in the ad industry now, I believe, is detrimental to the advertiser. It’s now just one big black box, you put money in one side and get traffic out the other. The control and useful tracking (what actual search terms people are using, proper visible conversion tracking of an ad) is now almost non-existent. As an advertiser your livelihood is dependant on an algorithm, not skill, not intuition, not experience, not even track record. Facebook, Google and the rest of the industry were so driven by profit at all cost, and at the expense of long term thinking, they shot themselves in the foot. Advertisers are searching for alternatives, but they are all the same. I think online advertising, as a whole, is probably f***ed…

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ls15 4y ago
> Facebook, Google and the rest of the industry were so driven by profit at all cost, and at the expense of long term thinking, they shot themselves in the foot. As far as I know, the technical term for that is greed.
civilized 4y ago
> My thesis, in beef This is a delightful turn of phrase. I wonder if it was deliberate or an autocorrect happy accident.
- samwillis 4y ago
  I really hate iPhone autocorrect…
- hestefisk 4y ago

imiric 4y ago

The entire advertising industry should burn down, as far as I'm concerned. Advertising ruins every form of media it touches. From radio, television, newspapers (it's arguably responsible for killing journalism), and now the internet, and all the services we use it for. Web search is useless because of it. Most websites are pretty much spyware. A large percentage of them are SEO spam, existing only to serve ads. Most content on YouTube, the largest video platform, is unwatchable due to constant ad breaks and sponsored content. Astroturfing is everywhere, promoted posts flood social media sites. Advertising is instrumental to spreading of disinformation, propaganda, toppling of democracies and companies like Cambridge Analytica. And if all that wasn't enough, _paid_ subscription services have started serving ads. It's the same business model from TV, but even more intrusive and lucrative since user tracking and microtargetting is now possible. Stop. Just stop. Users want none of this. Of course, everyone loves getting services for free, but what adtech companies are getting in exchange for user data now is worth much more than the "free" services they offer. *They should be paying us instead.* We need new business models that are as easy for content providers to implement, yet don't come at the expense of user experience, and don't cause services to deteriorate into a privacy nightmare. This should be easier nowadays with cryptocurrencies. I still think the Basic Attention Token[1] is a step in the right direction. Are there more examples of this? [1]: https://basicattentiontoken.org/ https://basicattentiontoken.org/

riku_iki 4y ago
> The entire advertising industry should burn down, as far as I'm concerned. but they perform important economy function: connect buyers and sellers..
- imiric 4y ago
  > but they perform important economy function: connect buyers and sellers.. Do they? I've never once clicked on an ad and made a purchase, and I'm a fairly regular consumer. If I have a need for a product, I'll search for it. All advertising does is create a false desire to own a product by psychologically manipulating the viewer. It is dishonest by definition. In order to make a purchase, I first have to have a need for a product. This should arise naturally, not via some artifically produced desire. Then I'd like to read the true specifications of all suitable products that I can find, and read hopefully real and honest reviews by people who've purchased them. After that, I will narrow down my search and will only make a purchase if I think a specific product will fulfill my needs. Advertising directly interferes with this concept, steps in as a middle man between buyer and seller, and introduces all kinds of psychological tricks to manipulate me to not even make the purchase--I just need to click on an ad, and I make the advertiser money. It is unnecessary at best, and outright harmful at worst.

franczesko 4y ago

It's not a duopoly - it's a cartel: "a combination of independent commercial or industrial enterprises designed to limit competition or fix prices"

phendrenad2 4y ago

The advertising duopoly is a crown with no kingdom in 2022. Online advertising is dead - most people online aren't worth advertising too. This isn't 2010 when most people online were from wealthy countries. Google and Facebook are having a harder and harder time finding high-net-worth individuals to advertise too, because they all use adblock or avoid the open internet, preferring to stick to walled gardens like reddit and tiktok (which serve their own ads).

visarga 4y ago
That's also because they have to sell things we don't need to buy, 99.9% of the time. They don't have an offer for what I would buy today, they offer me something completely unrelated. The ads are not helpful. But if they focused on helpful ads their profits would be too small. Google once had the right approach - showing ads related to the search terms. It was polite and nicely delineated. But that wasn't going to earn them money from unrelated ad campaigns.
adventured 4y ago
> Online advertising is dead Everything you just said is voided by the fact that Google's ad business continues to boom. It's going nowhere. And I say that as someone that dislikes Google. Your pitch is emotionalism, I've been reading rants like that on HN for the past ~15 years. They're in practically every thread on Google or advertising. Meanwhile Google has gotten 17 times larger in that span of time. Their business has doubled in size since the beginning of 2019. Their operating income has skyrocketed. When did the death struggle begin for them exactly?
- candiddevmike 4y ago
  Google booming doesn't necessarily mean OP is wrong. Go read some PPC forums and you'll see a pretty consistent trend on ad ROI going down everywhere. Folks may just be spending more trying to spend their way back to a low CPA.
- QuarterReptile 4y ago
  So, maybe the rot is there, but it hasn't quite died? And even then, we'll need the strong storm to knock it over.

seshagiric 4y ago

I work in online search and recently expanded. In my opinion there are two major threats to Google and Facebook (I.e., ads related threats): 1. Platform power: Apple was a key supplier to Facebook in the sense that they provide platform driving a significant % of their Ads revenue. With Apple tightening privacy they have become an indirect but significant threat to Facebook. Google is relatively safe. 2. Threat of substitutes: as seen in Amazon, Ecom platforms are much closer to the customer. Us timer is about to make a purchase. I think over time Advertisers will eventually shift to platforms like amazon, Etsy etc so that can reach the customer right when they are about to make a purchase. Some what same appeal with snap and TikTok. Overall online ad industry will continue to flourish but will see big changes in who are the big players.

xyst 4y ago
the day the ad industry dies, we will all be better off
- smoldesu 4y ago
  What replaces it? People aren't going to host content for free. I hate ads too, but we have to be pragmatic about monetization; platforms like YouTube literally cannot exist without advertising to subsidize the insane architectural cost. The solution is proper oversight. We've gone too long without regulating advertisements, app stores and video platforms, and we've witnessed the consequences. It's time that we put the interests of the people before FAANG shareholders and HN pundits.
  - oezi 4y ago
    > platforms like YouTube literally cannot exist without advertising Why? If you consider Netflix without the cost of content creation, then less than 1 USD per month per user would cover the infrastructure cost just fine. Maybe cents suffice. Youtube is just one big profit center for Alphabet.
    - jsnell 4y ago

greatpostman 4y ago

YouTube and Facebook tune their recommendation algorithms for censorship and ad profit. This left a massive gap in their product, which was filled by tiktok. Capitalism is at work here

rs999gti 4y ago

Unless these competitors have something groundbreaking, Google and Meta can counter by undercutting ad spend pricing or acquiring potential rivals

wharfjumper 4y ago
The main rivals referred to are Amazon, Microsoft and Apple so acquisition doesn't seem a realistic option.
wharfjumper 4y ago
Since Apple, Microsoft and Amazon revenue mostly comes from non ad sources, a price war would weaken AlphaMeta relatively.

hey2022 4y ago

A somewhat tangential question. Why is Alphabet not decoupling Google from Google Ads / Google AdSense? Having Google’s name constantly in the news cycle because of their ad practices has ruined their reputation (deservingly). Wouldn’t a separate legal entity also be a safer approach from the legal perspective in the light of the ongoing antitrust investigations?

tsimionescu 4y ago
Because Google would then become a business with virtually no revenue - and no chance of producing revenue. Even though Alphabet itself would remain just as profitable, a business organization can't survive long if its goals are not in some ways associated with producing revenue, by the nature of how corporate politics work.
- asdff 4y ago
  Maybe if google wasn't so beholden on the ad revenue, they could pursue more interesting opportunities for revenue. Imagine a first rate aws competiter that wasn't Azure and the headache that system is in comparison. that alone would generate conversions overnight. Then you can use some of that infrastructure you've just built and your customers are paying for to run your own science division that could research anything and everything with free compute.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    But they don't care about opportunities; they care about revenue, and they already have plenty of that, guaranteed.
    - asdff 4y ago
      If you have basically a free money generator, why aren't you putting that in a room to run and make its free money while you work on a second or third free money generator?
      - 4y ago

dgudkov 4y ago

We know already how they will optimize to compete - more surveillance, more algorithms, and more annoyance.

torginus 4y ago

Somebody always brings this point up so it might as well be me this time - but does advertising work at all, particularly online advertising? I refuse to believe I'm some kind of one of a kind special snowflake, but whenever I wanna buy something cheap or disposable, like food, socks etc. I just see it and buy it. On the other hand when I'm looking for something I'm planning to get a bit more mileage out of, like a laptop, a pair of headphones or a cordless drill, I usually read the reviews and buy the product I think is most appropriate for me, not what the ads show.

sircastor 4y ago
What I find most amusing is the amazon and brand ads I see on Facebook. Amazon is trying to sell me dental office equipment, or specialized restaurant tools, and a dozen other things that few outside of a particular area of expertise would remotely consider. It’s bizarre.
cryptoegorophy 4y ago
It works. It works a lot better than you think. My biggest mistake was relying on organic traffic. Once I switched to paid ads business went 10x. Don’t assume everyone is like you, you are the 1% of the 1% of the 1%. Majority people follow ads that’s why it still exists.
- amelius 4y ago
  Ok, but it works for the wrong reasons. I.e., people buy stuff they wouldn't buy if they got honest information. It works against the main argument in favor of the free market: not the best product wins, but the one with the biggest advertising budget.
  - bolt7469 4y ago
    Tracking users with online advertising is actually a good thing for economic efficiency. People tend to see more relevant products, and are able to allocate their resources to products that better meet their needs. The best ads aren't lying to people.

siliconc0w 4y ago

If you search for socks and someone shows you a promoted ad for socks, you are likely trading relevance for money as the best sock for that person is unlikely to be the most promoted one. This works in the short term but ultimately what should happen (and currently doesn't) is users then use a search or retail platform that gives them more relevant results. Second is using my search for socks elsewhere on the platform. This is essentially using user-data outside of the intent it was given and that should be controllable by the user and default to the most conservative option without annoying dialogue boxes or other harassment. Whether it's within the platform or not shouldn't make a difference. So competition is good, but unfortunately what I'm taking away from this that companies are going to bake more ads into their products because the products themselves aren't seeing much competitive pressure (except maybe for Meta and rightfully so).

cetahfh14615 4y ago
> as the best sock for that person is unlikely to be the most promoted one. not necessarily. I don't see how there could be a correlation between the two. When you see "sponsored" on a listing, that doesn't tell you how much the vendor paid. Also many large and reputable vendors will pay simply to guarantee they are at the top of the listing. For the vendors that don't sponsor, you don't know whether the amount they save goes into a higher quality product > This is essentially using user-data outside of the intent it was given and that should be controllable by the user and default to the most conservative option without annoying dialogue boxes or other harassment. Except feeding user data back into the system makes certain things technically possible that weren't possible before. Do you think modern map applications would have the same degree of accuracy if they weren't able to use user data to improve it? > Whether it's within the platform or not shouldn't make a difference. It does make a difference because keeping it within the platform could be used to improve the platform itself. Sending it outside the platform could be used for more malicious purposes. In the map application example, the user knows their data feeds into improved accuracy. But they don't know where that data goes outside the platform
- Closi 4y ago
  > For the vendors that don't sponsor, you don't know whether the amount they save goes into a higher quality product. For the vendors that don't sponsor, you don't know whether the amount they save goes into a higher quality product. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. But for the vendors that DO sponsor, you definetly know that the money didn't go into a higher quality product. Some eCommerce companies who are agressively using Google/FB/Social will spend 30%+ of their revenue just on online/influencer advertising (based on companies I have worked with).

UltraViolence 4y ago

There are always threats, but these companies being paranoid, are always on the lookout for competitors. Facebook in the past had success defusing the threat by simply copying the competitor's app verbatim (Snapchat) and is trying to repeat this by altering both Facebook and Instagram to work like TikTok. The reason I see TikTok as a threat is largely because the company ignores all the rules and regulations that protect the privacy of minors and adults alike and companies will want that data regardless. Facebook won't be able to supply it to them since it has to abide by our laws. OTOH TikTok being based in a nations that's a strategic competitor to the U.S. may well mean the company is simply banned. IMHO it would be more fortuitous for Meta and Google to lobby for a ban. Fighting TikTok will not work.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

montpeliervt 4y ago

No has mentioned Subprime Attention Crisis yet. It’s worth reading. The whole thing is a hyper-inflated, opaque house of cards, and its collapse will cause a lot of pain.

1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago

Finally, an archive.org URL at the top instead of archive.ph. Nice one. The later has a "bot protection" page that looks like Cloudflare's but someone suggested it is not. Makes sense because archive.today and Cloudflare were in a spat some time ago. Archive.today wanted to allow monitoring of users' locations, e.g., via EDNS Client Subnet, but Cloudflare did not send ECS. Unlike Archive.today, Internet Archive does not try to force users to enable Javascript or make them solve CAPTCHAs. Nor does Common Crawl. It is interesting to contrast the Internet Archive (IA) with Archive.today. The later is vague about how it is funded and admits it could sell out to advertisers in the future.^1 There is obviously no small amount of data it could collect about user interests and behaviours that could be used to support advertising. For example, what usage data does it store, if any. What are the Terms of Use for that data. There are no public statements about any restrictions on what the website operator can do. The operator invites users to "Ask me anything" but AFAICT the website has no Privacy Policy. The operator admits it sends the client's IP in a X-Forwarded-For HTTP header. This is not something one would experience with IA. The server hosting the page being archived receives an IA IP address as the client IP address, not an IA user's IP address. IA has a Privacy Policy, last updated in 2001.^2 Unlike Archive.today, I feel reasonably confident IA wil not sell out to commercial interests but who knows. 1. From Archive.today's FAQ: How is the archive funded? It is privately funded; there are no complex finances behind it. It may look more or less reliable compared to startup-style funding or a university project, depending on which risks are taken into account. Will advertising appear on the archive one day ? I cannot make a promise that it will not. With the current growth rate I am able to keep the archive free of ads. Well, I can promise it will have no ads at least till the end of 2014. 2. YMMV, but IME but the fewer "updates" to a Privacy Policy over time the better.

blenton 4y ago
> The operator admits it sends the client's IP in a X-Forwarded-For HTTP header. You can easily test this. You will find that, actually, it does not send this header. Or the client's IP address in any other way.
1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago
Correction: FAQ states client IP address (instead of Archive.today IP address) is sent but not in a X-Forwarded-For header. Archive.today FAQ: Do you preserve archivers' privacy? E.g. not disclose the source IP address? Yes. But take in mind that when you archive a page, your IP is being sent to the the website you archive as though you are using a proxy (in X-Forwarded-For header). This feature allows websites (e.g shops or the sites with weather forecast) target your region, not mine. https://web.archive.org/web/20220913195108if_/https://archive.ph/faq https://web.archive.org/web/20220913195108if_/https://archiv...

mensetmanusman 4y ago

It’s an interesting issue because it is probably Apple’s fault. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/small-businesses-count-cost-of-apples-privacy-changes/?amp=1 https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/small-businesses-cou... Apple accidentally attacked small businesses that used to rely on geographically relevant advertising by increasing privacy protection. There is no easy solution here.

wussboy 4y ago
All that geographically relevant advertising could go back to how it was before Facebook/Google became the only way to do it. It seem an easy-enough solution to me.

mensetmanusman 4y ago

Everyone here likely works for a company that advertises. It might be in our individual best interest to have super effective advertising (for increased revenue), but it might be in the world’s interest to not allow that, because effective advertising leads to consumption… (and for privacy reasons,etc.)

incompatible 4y ago
"Everyone" is usually going to be a stretch. I know it's not true, in this case.

karmasimida 4y ago

Good thing isn't? They have been sleeping while making money. Now it's time to wake-up and do some serious innovation or become irrelevant

throwaway892238 4y ago

The only thing I will miss when Google eventually dies is Google Maps. Can somebody make a paid version of it please?

rieTohgh6 4y ago
Google Maps reduced free tiers and raised prices for access to its APIs few years ago - so maybe it is profitable on its own, at least core parts. Some people moved to use OSM but its quality varies between areas. There probably is no way to make StreetView profitable
- asdff 4y ago
  >There probably is no way to make StreetView profitable Replace the operator and the subaru with a drone then the prospects change. With a single drone flying a programmed route at 20mph during daylight you'd have mapped the ~22000 miles of maintained roads in Los Angeles in under 100 days. Maybe you could contract with city vehicles who would like to have street view maps of their cities, and just stick the cameras on garbage trucks and the like and have the bulk of the area mapped before long over the course of their regular job duties coming into different areas.

osigurdson 4y ago

I’ve never really understood how such a large portion of google’s revenues are derived from search. I’ve rarely clicked on any ads when using google or any other search engine. YouTube, in my opinion, is far more effective as users are forced to watch 5 second ads prior to watching the video that they are interested in. 5 seconds is too short to context switch and can also convey a lot of information.

yakaccount4 4y ago
Neither have I clicked on any Google ads. I suppose the sheer volume of searches made on Google make up for a 0.000001% click rate (made up number, but point stands).
kumarvvr 4y ago
The important part is "rarely clicked". Meaning, you have sometimes clicked on it. Spread that click amongst billions of users, and you have a good revenue stream.
- osigurdson 4y ago
  To quantify it a bit more, I think I only click on google search ads on the order of once per year. Contrast that with YouTube, where I probably watch 1000 ads per year on that platform.
colinmhayes 4y ago
I think most people click the ad more than you. A lot of companies advertise on their own keyword so I’ll click the ad then for example if I want to charge the company.

pdevr 4y ago

Misleading title. The heading implies both Google and Meta are threatened, but the article discusses the emerging competition to Meta, like Snapchat, Tiktok, and Apple. There is no mention of a search competitor to Google. There is no mention of any concrete threat to Google from the competition, either, other than implying they will also be affected by the general trend. Google may very well face competition from device manufacturers and the like, but this article does not provide any details about it whatsoever.

zwkrt 4y ago
Google isn’t being threatened by a search competitor they’re being threatened by attention competitors. The fact that Google provides search results is very much secondary to the fact that they deliver advertisements to eyeballs.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

SimonV123 4y ago

macleginn 4y ago

‘Microsoft’s social network, LinkedIn, is unglamorous but its business-to-business ads allow it to monetise the time users spend on it at a rate roughly four times that of Facebook, estimates Andrew Lipsman of eMarketer. It generates more revenue than some medium-sized networks including Snap’s Snapchat and Twitter. <...> So far [Apple] is only dabbling in ads and does not report sales figures. But Bloomberg reported recently that Apple’s ad business was already generating sales of $4bn a year, making it about as big an ad platform as Twitter.’ Twitter is now a unit of being moderately unsuccessful at advertising.

cloutchaser 4y ago
Considering the audience of twitter, which is the elite of society, this is really is an especially bad performance. Twitter advertising should be the highest CPM out there, with the probably wealth and influence level of its audience.
- enumjorge 4y ago
  > Considering the audience of twitter, which is the elite of society You and I have very different experiences of Twitter
  - samstave 4y ago
    yeah, thats the stupidest thing ive read in a bit... when i interviewed at twitter in ~2006? i was asked what i thought twitter was, and I Replied that it was a "sentiment barometer' They didnt like that.
    - thundergolfer 4y ago
      I’m guessing you don’t use Twitter or follow it much. Of all the major social platforms — FB, Reddit, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram — only Twitter has significant and consistent usage by the intellectual and economic elite.

hnbad 4y ago

If it's a duopoly, why do websites like this one ask me to consent to twenty thousand different ad networks? Of course that's not what the article means, but it's interesting that Google, Meta and TikTok are described as advertising giants when their products ostensibly serve different purposes. I wasn't aware they were comfortable with being so mask-off about the actual nature of what they are, namely vehicles to generate ad impressions.

throwmeback 4y ago

Oh no. Poor Google-Meta advertising duopoly!

r00fus 4y ago

Is it that this is a contraction of the online advertising market, or just the fact that cheap money is gone (corporate paper is no longer free if you want it)?

Raziarazzi 4y ago

There is no ambiguity. This has happened to me with several accounts I've helped manage. When an account has a history of low CTR, the CPC increases. Starting a new campaign does not help; the CPC remains high until the CTR improves. And it's not cheap.