No more monopoly<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
All of this has dismantled any monopoly or near-monopoly that traditional publishers had on content delivery or attention. But that\u2019s not the worst of it. That\u2019s just level one of what is increasingly becoming<\/a> a multi-level bloodbath for media companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Note<\/strong>: This was\u00a0originally published\u00a0at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n In addition to losing control, advertising itself has also been transformed by the rise of new technologies, the most important of which is what\u2019s called \u201cprogrammatic\u201d advertising<\/a>. In a nutshell, this is ad delivery driven entirely by algorithms. Software looks at what users have seen or clicked on, chooses ads from various networks and automatically places them. Virtually no humans are involved\u2014just data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From a publisher\u2019s point of view, this creates a number of problems. One is that because of the massive explosion of supply\u2014an almost unlimited number of webpages, as opposed to a strictly controlled number of newspaper and magazine pages\u2014and the use of software instead of expensive human beings, digital advertising generates orders of magnitude less revenue than it used to (there\u2019s also a huge problem with ad fraud<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n This has also proven to be a disaster for readers and web users. The combination of publishers\u2019 desperation to generate more revenue and the rise of programmatic and other tools has created a kind of perfect storm. The result is a web filled with useless and annoying banner ads, popups, pop-unders, page takeovers, un-killable auto-play videos and other monstrosities\u2014including the use of literally hundreds of tracking agents<\/a>, cookies, super-cookies and other invasive tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many users have responded to this by ignoring advertising completely\u2014click-through rates on banner ads are so low it would take an electron microscope to even see them (the industry average is 0.1%<\/a>). And in order to help them do so, many use ad blocking software, which instantly removes any and all advertising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This has resulted in a kind of arms race, in which ad blockers develop new ways of tracking and killing ads, and publishers feverishly hire companies<\/a> to find tricks and hacks that will get around those tools. On top of all that, many of the advertising methods publishers use don\u2019t work at all on mobile devices, due to screen size and the way users behave when they are using a smartphone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As bad as all of this is, however, it is about to get even worse: Apple said recently that<\/a> the next version of its Safari browser will have ad-blocking built in, making it even easier for users to avoid ads\u2014except the ones that Apple includes in its upcoming News app, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bottom line is that the hellish landscape that is web and mobile advertising has done nothing to improve the financial health of publishers and content creators, and at the same time has given even more power to platforms and middlemen like Apple and Facebook. A big part of the reason why Facebook\u2019s \u201cInstant Articles\u201d pitch<\/a> is so appealing to media companies is that their own mobile app and mobile browsing experience is not only terrible for users but also financially irrelevant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From that point of view, if Facebook can offer mobile versions of a media partner\u2019s pages that load much faster and can also deliver a large chunk of the advertising revenue it generates\u2014revenue that is almost certain to be far larger than the media company can produce on its own, since Facebook\u2019s ads are so much more effective\u2014then where\u2019s the downside?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The downside, of course, is that Facebook and Google and Apple wind up controlling the flow of content in a very real sense, because they now operate the levers that determine who sees what content, and also who sees which ads. So not only are they the dominant (and growing) method by which many Internet users<\/a> find and share news and other content, but they are also becoming the pre-dominant way in which advertisers reach those users. Where does that leave traditional media entities?<\/p>\n\n\n\n As technology analyst Ben Thompson has said a number of times, there is a great reckoning coming<\/a> for media companies of all kinds, and what\u2019s happening with advertising is a major source of fuel for that bonfire. What ultimately emerges at the end of that process remains unclear.<\/p>\n![\"newspaper-ad-revenue\"\/](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/images-production.authory.com\/MathewIngram\/Advertising-isnt-the-solution-to-the-medias-problems--it-is-the-problem\/e994a520-7fe6-11ea-b8bd-75f37bac5250.jpg?w=525&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nA new arms race<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Ad](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/images-production.authory.com\/MathewIngram\/Advertising-isnt-the-solution-to-the-medias-problems--it-is-the-problem\/e9b12dd0-7fe6-11ea-b8bd-75f37bac5250.png?w=525&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nMore power for Facebook<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Facebook](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/images-production.authory.com\/MathewIngram\/Advertising-isnt-the-solution-to-the-medias-problems--it-is-the-problem\/e9d2bf90-7fe6-11ea-b8bd-75f37bac5250.jpg?w=525&ssl=1\")
<\/a>