Sublime

the scaled ad play on social is kind of over. Even Meta is working on paid products now for its apps for Instagram and Facebook. I don’t really see any of the more upstart social companies focusing on a scaled ad play. I think we’re past that era.

First, digital media enjoys the zero marginal costs of both software and content. Each incremental user to join Facebook, TikTok, or YouTube costs nothing. And when that user shares a piece of content, that content can reach a theoretically infinite number of people at zero cost. Some people would argue that these companies aren’t media companies, ... See more

The problem ‘akshually’ is that contemporary programmatic advertising is too efficient, and the ads sales people at The New York Times selling outrageously priced ads on a fixed, rate-card basis were selling media not really worth the cost (when measured at the level of precision the internet makes possible). Decades worth of such advertising mispr... See more