By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 05/09/2026The numbers tell the story. Before Googbook captured 80% of the display advertising business, the *total* share of the advertising industry's revenues that went to "intermediaries" (middlemen like ad agencies, ad buyers, etc) was about 15%. 191
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 05/09/2026Today, that number is *51%*. *Hundreds of billions of dollars* have been moved out of publishers' and advertisers' bank accounts and onto Google and Facebook's balance sheets. 2101
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 05/09/2026This isn't hard to understand. Google runs an ad business that locks in buyers *and* sellers on a marketplace *Google* owns and controls, where it *also* competes with those buyers and sellers. 181
Animal Spirits @animalspirits.bsky.social · 05/09/2026It always amazes me when the members of a market don't get together to reign in parasites that hurt everyone like healthcare and ad tech industries 000
