Anil Dash is on fire in his editorial on all the ways that publishers, advertisers, brokers, readers, OS vendors, browser vendors, and users pass the buck when it comes to intrusive ads, ad-blocking, and sustaining ad-supported media.
“I’m a publisher. I let the ad networks handle the inventory. I have to worry about the bottom line, and our brand. I can’t get in the weeds with all this stuff.”
“We’re just an ad serving platform. We deliver the ads, and make sure they’re tracked. It’s not up to us what ads come through. Who are we to say?”
“We’re an optimization platform. Sure, we make the algorithm that decides which ads are displayed. But the software is neutral, it just uses math to decide. We’re not responsible for what buyers put in the system. And publishers can say no to anything they want to.”
“We’re buying ads because we’ve got something to sell. We have to use whatever techniques are gonna make us the most money. Don’t like it? Don’t take our money.”
How we pass the buck
[Anil Dash/Medium]