You want a good internet economy with lots of jobs? Here’s How.

2014 April 18
by Ian Welsh

I’ve been blogging for a long time, and I was managing editor of both the Agonist, and FDL. While at both jobs, advertising income wasn’t my responsibility, except indirectly (I was responsible for traffic), I kept an oar in and an eye out.

Here’s the deal: advertising revenue collapsed. In particular it collapsed in 2007/8, and it kept collapsing. The reason it collapsed is that in the old days you sold your ads direct, or through brokers who offered good deals. As time went by, however, the percentage offered dropped and dropped and dropped. The brokers consolidated, and one broker took the lion’s share of the market: Google.

The reasons are simple enough: Google can offer the widest portfolio of websites to advertise on, and for all but the best branded websites, it determines more traffic than any single other factor. For people with no brand, it determines almost all the traffic.