Online ad technology harmed consumers while failing to reward advertisers generously.

Evidence

In nearly every possible way, ad tech was terrible for consumers and, to compound the pity of it all, not particularly lucrative for advertisers either. As the programmer Marco Arment lamented in 2015, “In the last few years…web ad quality and tolerability have plummeted, and annoyance, abuse, misdirection, and tracking have skyrocketed. Publishers don’t have an easy job trying to stay in business today, but that simply doesn’t justify the rampant abuse, privacy invasion, sleaziness, and creepiness that many of them are forcing upon their readers.” Even the tech people managed to draw a short straw, for all of this mischief took a surprising amount of programming talent to accomplish. “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads,” commented scientist Jeff Hammerbacher. “That sucks.” — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1083

Categorization

• SHARE: The Hammerbacher quote about best minds making people click ads is worth sending to anyone who works in tech or media criticism.
• XREF: connects to: Major brand advertisers rejected early Internet advertising due to a lack of proven metrics. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 730; AI marketing manipulates perceptions to generate profits, ignoring real harms. — Emily M. Bender, Alex Hanna, The AI Con- How to Fight Big Tech’s…, 18; Online advertising produced no memorable cultural touchstones. — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 591 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• AI marketing manipulates perceptions to generate profits, ignoring real harms. #expands (0.75) — Emily M. Bender, Alex Hanna, The AI Con- How to Fight Big Tech’s…, 18
• Internet advertising’s business model normalized low-level scams. #expands (0.75)
• Online advertising produced no memorable cultural touchstones. #corroborates (0.72) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 591
• Behavioral data shifted from improving service to reading users’ minds for ad targeting. #expands (0.72) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 244