Everything Is Advertising with Ryan Barwick

Ed Zitron is joined in-studio by Ryan Barwick of Marketing Brew to talk about how the entire tech ecosystem is controlled by ads - and whether companies like OpenAI and Perplexity can hope to plug the gaps in their leaky revenue models. Follow Ryan: https://x.com/Ryanbarwick https://x.com/Ryanbarwick) https://www.marketingbrew.com/contributor/ryan-barwick --- LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/ Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at https://discord.com/invite/QUUQUP9szv Ed's Socials: https://twitter.com/edzitron https://www.instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com https://www.threads.net/@edzitron See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Empower is all about helping you invest well so you can go out and live a little. And their Free Empower Personal Dashboard shows you your full financial life in one place. You'll be able to see your net worth, monitor budgets, analyze your portfolio, set retirement goals and more. Whether you're saving for something big, want to treat yourself, friends or family, or meet long-term goals, Empower helps you see where you stand. You've worked hard for your money and Empower can help you make the most of it. Download the Empower Personal Dashboard or visit empower.com. Not an Empower client paid or sponsored.

• 0:36Speaker 02

  Financial growth begins long before the first investment. It comes from understanding what you're building toward, what's at stake, and what success looks like for you. At Oppenheimer, we bring bold thinking guided by the full strength of our expertise to put capital to work building and protecting wealth that lasts generations. Put the power of Oppenheimer Thinking to work for you. Wealth management, capital markets, investment banking.

• 1:08Speaker 03

  Call Zone Media.

• 1:11Ed Zitron?

  Hello and welcome to Better Offline. I'm the single most punished individual alive. My name's Ed Zitron and I'm your host.

• 1:28Ed Zitron?

  Today I'm joined by Ryan Barwick of Morning Brew and Marketing Brew specifically, of course. Ryan, thank you for joining me.

• 1:34Speaker 05

  Hey, man. What's up? How's it going?

• 1:36Ed Zitron?

  We are in the beautiful New York studios of iHeart Radio. Daniel Goodman, of course, producing live with us, live to tape, of course. And Ryan's here to talk to me about advertising. And we're going to start somewhere fairly obvious, which is what is the kind of status of the Google Ads antitrust case? Where are we at?

• 1:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, I spent, in September, I spent two weeks in Alexandria, Virginia. Sexy Alexandria, Virginia. Sitting on a wooden bench, listening to hours and hours of economists explaining auction bidding. I know you're very jealous of that.

• 2:11Ed Zitron?

  This is worth listening to, love. No, but seriously, actually, you explain all.

• 2:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, no, I mean, it was, I got a nosebleed halfway through it because it was at times very dull, but also very exciting. Essentially, the DOJ is arguing that Google doesn't just have a monopoly on digital advertising, but they own the entire supply chain, right? So, Google owns the software that publishers use to, like, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, to run ads on their website and to monetize their content. Google also owns, or has a monopoly, on the software that advertisers are using to reach those audiences on the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. And in between those two pieces of software, there's this auction software.

• 2:56Speaker 05

  There's a bidding platform, and Google also owns that, right? So, they own every piece, the DOJ is alleging that they own every piece of the supply chain. And they really, I mean, at one point, the DOJ said Google sees, I think, nine out of every 10 digital transactions.

• 3:16Ed Zitron?

  Hmm.

• 3:16Speaker 05

  So, that's pretty large, right?

• 3:18Ed Zitron?

  That's a lot of them.

• 3:19Speaker 05

  That's pretty big. And it was fascinating, over the course of two weeks, I was only there for two weeks. I believe it went on for a little bit more than three. We kind of got a history of ad tech, which is this incredibly complex, incredibly dense, incredibly dorky industry, to just kind of explain how the internet makes money. And Google has been on the receiving end of a lot of those advertising dollars, of those ad budgets. And it's fascinating. So, we had, the Monday before Thanksgiving, we had closing arguments, which is where the DOJ and Google get to make their final stand before the judge and make their arguments. The DOJ, again, just kind of pointed to Google's size.

• 4:03Ed Zitron?

  They own every single part of the stack, kind of.

• 4:06Speaker 05

  Right, or certainly the most successful parts of the stack. And then Google essentially countered by saying, look, we're really good at what we do. And it's hard to argue with them in the sense that they have so much data that they can monetize these things really efficiently because they see so much, they can get really good at.

• 4:24Ed Zitron?

  But it feels like the argument there would be, well, you have all this data from the monopolies you're doing. So I'm guessing that's kind of how the DOJ came in it.

• 4:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, yes. And it was interesting, on the first day, the DOJ said, you have all of these advertisers, but we never really delved into why they have so many advertisers. YouTube was almost never mentioned during the case.

• 4:46Ed Zitron?

  Really?

• 4:46Speaker 05

  Gmail, Chrome, right? Obviously, there's a much sexier trial that is still ongoing. Well, has already.

• 4:53Ed Zitron?

  It's entering the remedy phase.

• 4:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, has already reached its conclusion. The real heads were at the ad tech trial, I like to say. The real dorks were at the much more complex and boring trial.

• 5:04Speaker 05

  So that wasn't really necessarily touched on. And again, it will be really interesting. One thing that I kind of took away from the trial, and this is called like, it's a rocket rocket. So it happens really quickly. We could find out before Christmas or even in early January, what decision the judge has reached. But one thing that I really took away from it is that the DOJ was basically pointing out issues or decisions Google made to maintain a monopoly, things that had happened 10 years ago, things that had happened 12 years ago in some instances. So Google does something and the industry has to respond and then Google does another thing.

• 5:47Ed Zitron?

  Can you give an example?

• 5:48Speaker 05

  Well, there are these, you know, strategies. One was called like Last Look, where Google would get the last look at a bid between an advertiser and a publisher.

• 5:58Ed Zitron?

  Jason, Jason brought that up on a preview, like the idea that like right then they go, and we can just bid under them.

• 6:04Speaker 05

  Right, exactly. So then Google would do that. And then the industry would try to work around that. And ultimately, things. Things have reached a kind of, I don't know if copacetic is the correct term. Things have kind of leveled out there, especially as advertisers are more drawn to like streaming platforms. They're more drawn to a platform like a TikTok or Twitter social media platforms. You know, banner ads are kind of like, I think among most buyers are kind of like the least sexy version of advertising. Can you, I think the common frame, like, can you name any banner ad you've ever seen?

• 6:42Ed Zitron?

  Only that McDonald's one from like 20 years ago where it said I'd hit that.

• 6:46Speaker 05

  Okay, there we go.

• 6:47Ed Zitron?

  That was a great ad. I've never fucked a burger, but I thought about it for at least a second. So, but never, correct. And it's, my question is, is that kind of advertising dying? Is banner, traditional, that kind of media dying? Is it being replaced or is it just cheaper and shittier?

• 7:05Speaker 05

  Well, you would hope it doesn't die because that is the kind of advertising that a lot of publishers.

• 7:10Ed Zitron?

  I wasn't asking because I wanted it to happen.

• 7:11Speaker 05

  Right, that a lot of publishers use, right? And obviously publishers have shifted to try to get subscriptions. I don't know if I'd go as far as saying it's dying, but budgets are definitely shifted. And in the same way that linear television is losing viewers every year and people are adopting like streaming platforms.

• 7:30Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 7:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's just, it's not as interesting. It's not as sexy. And, and I do not know, to kind of tie the knot here, I don't know what kind of remedy might solve that. Like if Google's forced to sell its auction software, its exchange, what does that do?

• 7:49Ed Zitron?

  Like double click, just they finally, they, after buying it, they just sell it again. Couldn't they sell access to the data? Because that's kind of what they're suggesting with the search remedies. Listeners, if you didn't know, part of the suggested remedies from the government have been selling Chrome, which I'm going to there on. But they're saying that they would allow other search engines to access Google's data dump. Now, could a similar thing happen with this?

• 8:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, I don't really know, like, the bit streams here, it's so complex, there's so many players involved.

• 8:18Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 8:18Speaker 05

  I don't entirely know what that would look like, and I think that's part of the, I'm sure Google's lawyers and the DOJ's lawyers

• 8:25Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 8:26Speaker 05

  are wrestling over this kind of stuff, but you definitely got the sense, at least from the, however many reporters were there, that this stuff is so weedy and so complex that I don't know how much of it is ultimately, I don't know what kind of remedies ultimately alleviate the concerns in the industry. Certainly, many people feel like Google is a monopoly, but I'm not entirely sure where else they would take their dollar. But again, a part of that is because Google is a monopoly.

• 8:55Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, because there's never been another option.

• 8:56Speaker 05

  Right.

• 8:56Ed Zitron?

  Kind of makes me think of Facebook as well, because I know that there's, have they done an antitrust case against them? I forget. But I know the argument is that they have a monopoly over social media, which is true. But breaking up these companies seems, I want them to do it, they need to do it, but I just have no idea how they could possibly, like, they're so deeply embedded in every corner of every part of the internet at this point. I just don't know how practical that would be.

• 9:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was interesting. Google brought up, on the last day of the trial, they brought up Microsoft as its competitor. Look, Microsoft has Xbox. That's inventory that Google doesn't have access to. That's an advantage Microsoft has over Google. I don't think I've ever met a media buyer that has ever said, "Well, that Xbox inventory really makes a difference."

• 9:42Ed Zitron?

  We've got to make sure we're on X.

• 9:43Speaker 05

  Right, right. So like, or that Microsoft has made a lot of inroads with retailers, for example.

• 9:48Ed Zitron?

  Haven't Microsoft been trying to do ads for years and never really made it? Well, they make like a billion from Bing.

• 9:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, they have a very successful business around it, but it's certainly not.

• 9:59Ed Zitron?

  It's not Google-sized.

• 10:00Speaker 05

  A juggernaut like a Google or an Amazon.

• 10:02Ed Zitron?

  And for context, listeners, I think, what, a billion in revenue compared to? Several hundred billion from ads that Google makes?

• 10:09Speaker 05

  Forty billion a quarter.

• 10:11Ed Zitron?

  Jesus Christ.

• 10:13Speaker 05

  Putting it lightly.

• 10:15Ed Zitron?

  But there was one story I did want to talk to you about that you wrote back in September that we've talked about a few times. This Facebook ad story, because I actually think that this may be a story that gets bigger and bigger. But you wrote this story about how you talked to a few ad buyers with Facebook and that Facebook's ads platform is kind of broken. Can you go into that a bit?

• 10:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, this is something I noticed on Twitter, or I guess we call it X now.

• 10:38Ed Zitron?

  I don't.

• 10:40Ed Zitron?

  He deadnames trans people, I'm deadnaming queer.

• 10:42Speaker 05

  There you go. Essentially buyers were saying, hey, so there are advertisers, but advertisers aren't pulling the levers. Usually advertisers go to ad agencies and the ad agencies, I don't know if your audience cares necessarily about that delineation. But I saw a bunch of buyers saying, hey, you know, we, we had $10,000 disappear. We, we put it into, into Meta and, and it poof, it disappeared, it's gone. We don't know what happened to it. And, you know, one guy saying that it's like, okay, maybe that is a bug. But then when you talk to eight media buyers and they all say since roughly January that the platform has become really wonky, that there are a lot of hurdles to overcome.

• 11:22Ed Zitron?

  Wonky how?

• 11:23Speaker 05

  Bugs essentially, like again, someone in ad tech described these advertising platforms, like a Google, like we were talking about, or a Meta, described them that like, I shouldn't think about them as platforms, I should think about them as ATMs. That like, you put money in these machines and then maybe money will come out, or at least you'll get a metric that tells you you made money.

• 11:43Ed Zitron?

  A metric which only they have.

• 11:45Speaker 05

  Right, exactly, that they have decided for you.

• 11:48Ed Zitron?

  And they are the ultimate auditor as well.

• 11:50Speaker 05

  Right, yeah, they're essentially, they're, buyers would say that these companies operate black boxes, right? That you can't really audit, but the black boxes do sell do hickies and widgets, right? Like people do buy stuff on Instagram and, and on Google and even on TikTok, basically. But anyway, I, I ended up talking to several buyers that were saying that, you know, again, they would, they would create a budget and then out of nowhere, I want to advertise on Instagram. And then in the middle of the night at three in the morning, the campaign only targeted people on Facebook and only targeted 80 year old people on Facebook. And, and it didn't really work. And again, when you have so many people saying that, that's what they encounter, that the, the platform wasn't really working

• 12:33Speaker 05

  the way they had expected to, or the way it intended. And Meta essentially was saying, "Kick rocks." Like, there's nothing we can do.

• 12:40Ed Zitron?

  Would Meta not refund their money or anything?

• 12:43Speaker 05

  Uh, no, I believe, at the time I was talking to people, I don't think people had gotten credits yet. And as they were saying this, Meta had its, like, best quarter ever, right? So Meta doesn't necessarily need to, to, uh, help alleviate these small kind of buyers, even though these people, in many instances, are spending six figures on their advertising campaigns.

• 13:03Ed Zitron?

  Just breaking that down, so these media buyers, they're not just for the listeners to break this down. So they're not buying for, like, one company, they represent, well, like, 10, 15.

• 13:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, they can, they can work with 10 brands, they can work with 15, yeah.

• 13:13Ed Zitron?

  So they're like an agency of sorts.

• 13:15Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 13:15Ed Zitron?

  So, I mean, my, my thought on that would be is, "How is Meta making all that money?" And it's just, it's very, there's no, just very basic thing. There's no other way to advertise on these platforms, right? There's no other inroad with Instagram or Facebook, right? It's just this?

• 13:30Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 13:30Ed Zitron?

  That is insane. That is bonkers, like, and there's, did you hear from Meta at all? Did they get back to you?

• 13:36Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, I mean, I think they would say that, um, advertisers love Meta, right?

• 13:41Ed Zitron?

  Great.

• 13:42Speaker 05

  And I think a lot of, and a lot of people, you know, a lot of buyers will say, "Well, it does work for them." Again.

• 13:47Ed Zitron?

  Sometimes.

• 13:47Speaker 05

  Outside of, like, that's why TikTok has become so interesting, because TikTok kind of presents this third option, um, where previously you could really only spend on a Meta. Snap obviously exists, that doesn't always gain a lot of traction.

• 14:02Ed Zitron?

  That company is not a good business, it never has been.

• 14:05Speaker 05

  I did, I loved it in high school.

• 14:06Ed Zitron?

  No, but that's the thing, it's like an app that has uses, but when they tried to add the business stuff, it just immediately, like, they're like, "Oh, this, this just burns money."

• 14:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, Snap's interesting, because they take over every industry of that, and they always have such a presence, and yet, I feel like the story, at least every time I talk to people about Snap as a platform, I always get, eh. Reddit has impressed a lot of people lately. But again, it wasn't until TikTok that people actually kind of raised eyebrows about another platform, giving them, it gives advertisers kind of a diversity outside of just Meta and Instagram.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  Empower is all about helping you invest well so you can go out and live a little. And their Free Empower Personal Dashboard shows you your full financial life in one place. You'll be able to see your net worth, monitor budgets, analyze your portfolio, set retirement goals, and more. Whether you're saving for something big, want to treat yourself, friends, or family, or meet long-term goals, Empower helps you see where you stand. You've worked hard for your money, and Empower can help you make the most of it. Download the Empower Personal Dashboard or visit empower.com. Not an Empower client paid or sponsored.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  Financial growth begins long before the first investment. It comes from understanding what you're building toward, what's at stake, and what success looks like for you. At Oppenheimer, we bring bold thinking guided by the full strength of our expertise to put capital to work building and protecting wealth that lasts generations. Put the power of Oppenheimer thinking to work for you. Wealth management, capital markets, investment banking.

• 15:44Ed Zitron?

  All right, folks, I'm back talking to you about Quince, one of my favorite clothing brands. And I finally pulled the trigger and picked up one of their Cuban-curved chains to go with one of their Pima cotton t-shirts. Going to be a good look for me? Eh, you'll find out. All of this will sit beneath one of Quince's responsible down-hooded Parkers, a ridiculously warm and comfortable coat that I wear constantly in the fall and winter. It can actually really take a beating in the wind. It's wonderful, and I can't recommend it enough. Now, everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands because they work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen, so you can give luxury quality pieces without the luxury price tag. I've been buying from them for years before they advertised, and I heartily recommend their stuff, even wearing one of their t-shirts as I speak. Give the gift of quality this holiday season.

• 16:29Ed Zitron?

  Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was better offline. It's the best way to support the show.

• 16:49Ed Zitron?

  Maybe you can actually answer this, going back to Snapchat. Why isn't, is there stuff just not effective? Are their ads not good?

• 16:55Speaker 05

  I don't know if I could necessarily speak to that.

• 16:57Ed Zitron?

  Okay.

• 16:58Speaker 05

  I'm, I'm always looking for like a broader picture and.

• 17:01Ed Zitron?

  Sure, I don't even mean a qualitative one. It's just like, what are people, are people saying stuff? Or is it just not that effective?

• 17:06Speaker 05

  I would, I'd say it's just not that like interesting. Like, I don't think that every time I ask people about that, I don't get that many interesting answers. Reddit is fascinating. Reddit is like the Wild West of the internet and I, I use Reddit constantly.

• 17:18Ed Zitron?

  We've got the better offline Reddit full of various criminals and it's great.

• 17:22Speaker 05

  Do you see a lot of ads there?

• 17:24Ed Zitron?

  I move past them with, with the speed of Pegasus.

• 17:27Speaker 05

  You've got the trained eye.

• 17:28Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, I've just like old school into that, just like, no. Just my, my brain removes it.

• 17:33Speaker 05

  Do you do that with newsletters too?

• 17:35Ed Zitron?

  Yeah.

• 17:36Speaker 05

  See, I feel like this is the thing. I'm, I'm curious how this evolves. This is the dorkiest conversation ever.

• 17:41Ed Zitron?

  This is better offline, we are the dorkiest.

• 17:42Speaker 05

  I'm, I'm curious in five to 10 years, like, and I work at a newsletter company.

• 17:46Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 17:46Speaker 05

  Uh, but I'm curious if in five to 10 years, people aren't even going to look at newsletter ads. Because we've just trained the behavior to, to look, to, to know exactly when to skip.

• 17:55Ed Zitron?

  I've done test ads of like Mates products. Like I don't, no one will pay me for an ad other than on this podcast that will humiliate me by

• 18:04Ed Zitron?

  trying to sell you AI software, which everyone loves to tell me about. But like with the newsletters, people do click, people do engage. And I found that across the board. And my general view is right now is newsletter companies are actually going to do better. I don't, do you remember back in like 2021, when every publication was like, we, we have to do newsletters now? And then they immediately junked it three months later. It just feels insane because that feels far more the future than any kind of subscription product. Like subscribe, like The Verge has a subscription product now. And it's like, I get why they have to do it because money, things cost money. But it just feels that that, the whole media industry right now needs to work out a way to connect with the readers. And it feels like their email address is good. It's like a good place for it.

• 18:47Speaker 05

  That's where I want, New York Magazine launched a, an app. And I want it to succeed. I, I love New York.

• 18:53Ed Zitron?

  An app?

• 18:53Speaker 05

  They launched an app. They created an app. Uh, as if it's, you know, the, the iPad era of news, whatever.

• 19:00Ed Zitron?

  But like an app for the mag.

• 19:01Speaker 05

  An app for the magazine. Apparently not, or they didn't put a lot of resources behind it. And I think that's great. I hope it makes money, but I just want a newsletter. And they do. They've got amazing newsletters. I'll take another newsletter. I'll read something else from New York Times.

• 19:14Ed Zitron?

  So this is now a completely different subject, but it's my damn show. The thing that I've been really thinking about right now with the media is the this objectivity problem where everyone has to be objective, but it also feels like every outlet is trying to suck the life out of the reporters. Not like literally, but no personality, no voice. Morning Brew actually does a pretty good job with that. They've actually like allowed you to talk like human words. But it feels like The Times, The Post, both, well, no, New York Post has a voice, just not a nice one. Washington Post, even Business Insider has experimented with the discourse language I do write for, so I guess contraption.

• 19:52Speaker 05

  You're describing much more successful reporters than I am, by the way.

• 19:57Ed Zitron?

  No, but Morning Brew, I like Morning Brew, even though the video stuff rankles me a little bit. I cringey, but it's just, we're in this weird point now, and I think ads comes into this as well, where I'm not sure anyone in the media knows what the fuck to do business model wise. I think everyone's a bit scared.

• 20:16Speaker 05

  I just want to report the news.

• 20:18Ed Zitron?

  Exactly.

• 20:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, I don't know. I have the timid cowardly reporters attitude towards this, you know, so my beat primarily is advertisers, right? There is a cottage industry of ad tech companies that actively or inactively prevent advertisers from appearing in news publishers.

• 20:38Ed Zitron?

  Really?

• 20:38Speaker 05

  There was a, there's a whole culture around.

• 20:41Ed Zitron?

  There's like a Jezebel article about this, I feel.

• 20:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's these brand safety companies. There's a whole cottage industry around. And the example that everyone uses in the industry is that if I'm United Airlines or JetBlue or whoever, I don't want to run my ad next to a story about a plane crash.

• 21:00Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 21:01Speaker 05

  You can see why that's a conflict.

• 21:02Ed Zitron?

  Understandable.

• 21:04Speaker 05

  But I think the industry several years ago, this is not necessarily, the interest in this tech has waned.

• 21:11Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 21:11Speaker 05

  But the industry internalized that United Airlines example as I don't ever want to be near news at all because that is a negative environment.

• 21:21Ed Zitron?

  Right. I can't control it.

• 21:23Speaker 05

  Right, exactly. You can't control it and they shouldn't be able to control it.

• 21:26Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 21:26Speaker 05

  Advertisers shouldn't have a say on what's on the front page of a newspaper. And the report to that is. I have never thought differently about an advertiser based on the content it's next to. I don't think that's how humans think. It fails any critical thinking. And yet, these are billion dollar companies.

• 21:46Ed Zitron?

  And this is a very better offline thought, but a lot of that is the people making those decisions don't read the news anyway. So they're just like, well, this this thing I've made up is very scary.

• 21:56Speaker 05

  Or they think consumers are kind of dumb, which I don't think is fair. I don't think that's accurate, but I think that's I think that's.

• 22:04Ed Zitron?

  Yeah. And it also just suggests they haven't talked to consumers. Like, it feels like you could ask someone. And so thematically, though, kind of want to explain to listeners why I've had Ryan on. I've fact you're marvelous at this is the reason I talk about ads so much is it's kind of something you said earlier. Google's what nine out of 10 of all digital transactions. Though advertising is this annoying thing that everyone hates and complains about. It is the reason everything goes like this ads on this show that's ads on every website. Every single publication you read has a bunch of ads, banner ads, whatever video. And everyone has been trying to work out how not to do that for some time. And I think.

• 22:41Speaker 05

  It's how the internet exists. It's how the internet makes money. That's like the the way I try to, and I think this is me stylizing it, but it is how the internet is monetized. Through ads, baby. Google is an advertising business. Meta is an advertising business. TikTok is an advertising business.

• 22:56Ed Zitron?

  Is TikTok effective? Do ad buyers actually like it?

• 22:59Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, absolutely. They love it. They wish it wasn't Chinese, but they absolutely love it. And and they're still there. They're they're still have a very large presence, even though obviously it's been diluted a bit since the the election. But even though there is a threat that it could not, there was a threat that it could not exist.

• 23:21Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, it doesn't seem like that. It seems like Trump's gonna keep it now, which is very funny. It's just like, okay, I'm cinephobic, but not that. I it's interesting as well because. I feel like the news media could have, I'm not talking necessarily about Morning Bro. It feels like it's an undisgussed thing that only a few years ago, we had the first major online ad company pop up. That challenged any of the monopolies like Tik, the fact that Tik Tok exists and just fucking popped up is insane to me. Cause it's relatively new, like what 2018, 2019. I mean, various versions of it might existed before. And it's interesting, it makes me wonder whether any other company could spin up, just shove a bunch of money and do the same thing.

• 24:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, it's, I, I know this is something that you've talked about a lot, but every time I go on Facebook.com.

• 24:14Ed Zitron?

  Yeah.

• 24:15Speaker 05

  I think, man, there should be cobwebs here. Doesn't look, this isn't appealing to me as a user. This is a couple of batshit people I went to high school with, kind of just screaming in the grocery aisles.

• 24:28Ed Zitron?

  Yeah.

• 24:29Speaker 05

  And even Instagram, I feel like has become that, I'm, I'm speaking purely.

• 24:33Ed Zitron?

  Oh, no, no, I've said very similar things a lot of times and way more swear words, like it's fine. It, it's just really interesting and also kind of. What pisses me off about it, you don't have to agree, I can rant all I want, but is that the cobwebs thing? It's just like the products, like they're ad companies and they've just stopped pretending they're not like, they're not pretending like, oh yeah, we're going to connect you with your friends, your family's just like, ego pig. Eat your slop.

• 24:59Speaker 05

  Well, I, I'd say Meta has gone as so far as to say, we're actually not as interested in connecting you with your friends. What about this seventies funk band video? Would you like to see this content shown constantly? That's my algorithm. I, I just get bands out of, I get Steely Dan clips, which is cool, but that's, that's, that is far from why I intend initially signed up for the app. Cause I wanted to see everyone I went to high school with.

• 25:25Ed Zitron?

  For a solid six month period, all I got was these insane self-defense things. It was just like three second clips. Cause they don't show you the click, they want you to click on it. And it'd be like, how to stop a guy. And it was like, you're watching, you're like, this guy, if I did this, I would die. Like I, this, this is not useful information. And then a post from three weeks ago. Just from like a band that I liked when I was twenty two years old. And it's just, it's such a strange product and TikTok is extremely manipulative with their algorithm. Sure, but so is Meta, but it also feels like more of a functional bit, like a thing you use and enjoy. I find it horrible. It upsets me. I'm too old.

• 26:03Speaker 05

  You find it horrible?

• 26:04Ed Zitron?

  It's too much. I I don't like infinite scrolling. I must be done. And like, so I don't even like scroll down my Instagram pictures anymore. Cause there's so much crap. You go like two scrolls and you've got an ad for a mobile game that doesn't exist. And then an ad for a direct to consumer, like low carb product. I'm trying to be healthy and it's just like discordant. The whole thing just feels like very weird. And then TikTok at least feels like, yeah, we're manipulating you, but we've got fun things. Look at this.

• 26:31Speaker 05

  I love it. I I find TikTok, so I don't want to sound like a shrill. But I think in terms of just like the algorithm as an entertainment platform. I find it fascinating. And again, I'm very dull and boring. So I'm looking at travel to Paris videos and cooking videos. I just get a lot of cooking.

• 26:48Ed Zitron?

  I feel like that's more representative of regular people, though. You don't need to go like three levels deep of irony.

• 26:54Speaker 05

  Right, no.

• 26:55Ed Zitron?

  Enjoy something. You don't need the brain rot like I and I need like extra brain. I need the shit that is like a like the golden Shiva looking thing that says of. Type yes to affirm that you have been affirmed. Like I'm like three levels deep. I'm deeply unhappy, but you do normal stuff.

• 27:11Speaker 05

  I well, I want my friends to send me the brain rot stuff.

• 27:13Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 27:14Speaker 05

  That's how I get it.

• 27:15Ed Zitron?

  Curated.

• 27:15Speaker 05

  I get the group chat. Now, now my Twitter is all brain rot. That's how I like.

• 27:19Ed Zitron?

  Perfect. And Blue Sky, Blue Sky.

• 27:21Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 27:22Ed Zitron?

  And we are, we're a pro Blue Sky platform.

• 27:24Speaker 05

  You're you're on Blue Sky.

• 27:25Ed Zitron?

  I got one hundred and three thousand followers. I'm cooking. I'm I'm cooking. It's the best. And actually, Blue Sky is interesting because I don't know how much time you spent on it, but I've really been enjoying it. And enjoying the posts that are like, yeah, wow, I shared a link on here and everyone saw it. Just the insane, we are beaten dogs. We're just like, oh yeah, yeah, I, I can see the people I follow. And there's not just a groiper in my reply telling, telling me he's gonna bomb my house. Or three different people.

• 27:52Speaker 05

  Well, see, you have a much larger presence than I do. I, I, I, I've been going, I've been A B testing.

• 27:58Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 27:58Speaker 05

  What works on, on Twitter.

• 28:00Ed Zitron?

  Nothing works on Twitter, it's dying.

• 28:02Speaker 05

  I don't know, I still feel like I still get more, uh, among my very small pool there. I, I feel like I still get more of a reaction. And I feel like Twitter is more unhinged in a way that I find, uh, pleasant. Uh, but to your point about avoiding newsletter ads, I feel like I can now avoid.

• 28:19Ed Zitron?

  Oh, I can do that. I mean, I've been, I was on the internet using like Usenet and V-Bullet and shit. Like, I grew up on gaming forums, like, oh, Nazi, yeah, that's just one of the many, many freaks that pops up on IRC. They should be stopped in numerous ways, but X, X Twitter, whatever we call it now. Is just, it feels like it's falling apart. It actually, it's getting, not even like the cobweb feeling. It feels like being in like a, a, a big lots, which no one has been in for a while. It's just, there's just shit falling down. There's some weird guy in the corner and he's saying some things you really don't wanna, you don't want any business with him.

• 29:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, it isn't quantified, but a lot of the ads that I see now on X Twitter are now coming from Google. They're coming from, yeah, they're, they're coming from, uh, X has a partnership with Google just for basic, like, open programmatic advertising. So just add.

• 29:16Ed Zitron?

  Oh god, they're in the hole then. No, they must be. If they're having to move on to like a Google partnership?

• 29:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, so, so, um, so like a lot of, when I was back home in Delaware where I'm from.

• 29:28Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 29:28Speaker 05

  Like, the ads I would see on Twitter were from like the pizza parlor down the street. And I have to assume the pizza parlor wasn't spending.

• 29:36Ed Zitron?

  That is.

• 29:36Speaker 05

  Hundreds of thousands of dollars advertising.

• 29:38Ed Zitron?

  Do you think that's a bad sign for X?

• 29:40Speaker 05

  Uh, well, what's funny is I, yeah, I wrote a story about this. What's funny is when I went to the brands that were advertising there, I said, hey, you know, you're advertising on X. They said, what?

• 29:51Ed Zitron?

  Oh, no.

• 29:52Speaker 05

  They said, what's X? And I said, this, uh, platform is this, you know, it used to be called Twitter. Uh, and they're like, no, we're, we're on Google. And I was like, well, you have to go like, did you go in and did you click on the X thing or whatever? And they're like, no, well, we don't know how we-

• 30:07Ed Zitron?

  Close the window, mate.

• 30:08Speaker 05

  Is it, is it essentially, you know, uh, the Google algorithm believed that they could find cheap impressions on X and that's what happened?

• 30:15Ed Zitron?

  That feels like a bad sign for, I'm sorry, if they, if they are like the equivalent platform of, like, and they're gonna, you know, they're gonna add Outbrain. They're gonna add Outbrain and Taboola. And as a listener, if you don't know what Outbrain is, go to CNN.com, scroll down to paid content and take a look at that dog shit. Also, and I'll say this with respect to the many great reporters at The Verge, it's also on The Verge, which is disgusting. These things are called chum boxes. They're cheap, usually affiliate marketing content. You'll hear it on an upcoming episode. I'm really gonna get in the guts of them briefly and then punch them. Um.

• 30:47Speaker 05

  I believe it's Taboola. One of them has a partnership, uh, they, they do the-

• 30:50Ed Zitron?

  It's definitely Outbrain on CNN.

• 30:51Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, but one of them has a partner. I believe it's Taboola. They have a partnership with Apple. They, they do all the in-app advertising, or they were doing a lot of the in-app advertising for, uh, for Apple.

• 31:03Ed Zitron?

  Like, is it still content stuff?

• 31:05Speaker 05

  I, I believe it's like Apple News and in-app.

• 31:07Ed Zitron?

  What an evil company. What does it say about our society that that company makes money? They should, should be in the stockades, not in the stock market. It's disgusting, but-

• 31:15Speaker 05

  The look on my face is, couldn't say no comment.

• 31:18Ed Zitron?

  No, he has absolutely no opinions about this, just to be clear.

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• 32:33Ed Zitron?

  Let's move on to another subject, which is my favorite thing at the moment, which is so OpenAI and Perplexity. So Perplexity, generative AI-powered search engine, two deeply unprofitable companies. OpenAI has been hinting, Sarah Frey, the CFO, I believe, has been hinting that OpenAI would go into ads. And the response I've had when I've said this is silly is, yeah, they'll just add ads. And it doesn't sound like you can just add ads unless you just plug in Google, which I don't think they're going to do. It just doesn't feel possible. Maybe it's possible, it doesn't feel like something that can spin up overnight.

• 33:05Speaker 05

  So Perplexity, which is obviously the competitor to OpenAI and ChatGPT, they have started rolling out an ads model.

• 33:15Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 33:16Speaker 05

  At the time, they wanted to charge people 50 bucks a CPM, and that's very expensive.

• 33:21Ed Zitron?

  And that's cost per mile, 1,000 impressions.

• 33:23Speaker 05

  Yes, exactly.

• 33:23Ed Zitron?

  It isn't unique, it's just 1,000 times this is shown.

• 33:26Speaker 05

  And that is about 50 bucks a CPM is what Netflix wanted to charge, Netflix being like the most premium inventory you could buy. And Netflix had to lower.

• 33:37Ed Zitron?

  What did they lower to, do you know?

• 33:38Speaker 05

  Like roughly 35.

• 33:39Ed Zitron?

  Oh, God, yeah, perplexities, don't look good.

• 33:41Speaker 05

  So it's interesting that you do see these AI search companies dabbling with this. SEO advertising is like light-speed complex in terms of just like basic digital.

• 33:55Ed Zitron?

  When you say SEO advertising, what do you specifically mean?

• 33:58Speaker 05

  I mean, advertising and search engines.

• 34:00Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 34:00Speaker 05

  There, it is, it's almost like a totally different ballgame. It's a different category. People that call themselves, you know, search engine advertisers, I don't necessarily think they would consider themselves regular advertisers. They're they're very, uh, they've got a niche skill set and they're really good at it. And and and forever before Google did this overview answers, uh, that's how Google would work. You you could buy and bid on certain terms.

• 34:26Ed Zitron?

  Right. And then your link would appear.

• 34:27Speaker 05

  Exactly. Uh, and and so, long story short, what does that look like for? OpenAI's advertising business, the thing I always go back to, and again, this is very broad strokes, but like my mom isn't using a lot of the OpenAI products yet. And I think advertisers, your your blue chip advertisers, your your, um, your Bud Lights.

• 34:49Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 34:49Speaker 05

  Your your Fords. Um, I I don't, they're they're interested in scale. They're interested in eyeballs. They want to reach as many people as possible.

• 34:58Ed Zitron?

  A niche tech product, even though 300 billion weekly users sounds big.

• 35:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:03Ed Zitron?

  That's still kind of niche in comparison to Google's billions of regular folk.

• 35:07Speaker 05

  And there could be an audience, there's certainly an audience in Silicon Valley and in in New York and in in, I'm pointing at myself, and there's tech dorks that use these tools. But it'll be really interesting to see how they build these tools out. What what kind of questions they get and and who are the advertisers that are that are interested in this? Like you could obviously, Google has seen, uh, interest from a lot of shopping, e-commerce advertisers. If you're selling clothing, you might be interested in, hey, what's a good outfit I could wear? Like, that's obviously a stupid example. Um, it'll be interesting to see how they build this out.

• 35:38Ed Zitron?

  That'd be a great example.

• 35:40Speaker 05

  I'm I'm assuming, I'm assuming, obviously, we've seen, uh, OpenAI has hired executives from from Twitter, from Instagram, from Google. Um, I'm sure there are a lot of smart people that are building that. It'll be curious to see how the market does respond to it and how much interest there is.

• 35:56Ed Zitron?

  But just to be clear, you don't just like plug the ads in, you have to do like an ad exchange. You have to have a place where publishers can buy ads. And then you have to have an exchange for bidding on the ads. And then there's something else I'm missing, like a, like a.

• 36:09Speaker 05

  You'd have to build a platform that would allow advertisers to go in, set the parameters that they want. It's very technical.

• 36:17Ed Zitron?

  And you can't just buy that off the shelf either, like.

• 36:19Speaker 05

  I mean, maybe you can white label it, you can go to a company that does that and say, hey, give us the tech and we'll pay you a certain amount of money.

• 36:26Ed Zitron?

  Have to find a way to represent those ads within queries is the problem.

• 36:30Speaker 05

  And you'd have to have salespeople that go to the market and say, hey, you should buy our product. Advertising is.

• 36:37Speaker 05

  Outside of the monopolies in the space, I think, you know, Google,

• 36:40Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, sure.

• 36:41Speaker 05

  Amazon, Facebook, those are obviously where every dollar goes. It's a really cutthroat industry in terms of there's a lot of competition.

• 36:50Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 36:50Speaker 05

  I think advertisers might be willing to to test and and and try out a new platform. But it takes a lot of work to really pull the dollars from from a meta, from a Google, from an Amazon.

• 37:01Ed Zitron?

  TikTok a while, it took them years to actually build up. And TikTok's business doesn't lose money every time anyone uses it, every single time. It's just, I've I've also had a lot of arguments online this week in general, but it about this specifically, because the response is, we will just add ads, the ads will be there. But it doesn't even sound like the economics are there, because they need, they're losing five billion, ten, they'll probably lose ten billion next year. An ads business that does five billion dollars a year does not seem something you just spin up overnight, right? That's not an easy lift?

• 37:33Speaker 05

  Um, yeah, I can't speak, I've never had to build an ads platform.

• 37:37Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 37:37Speaker 05

  Although, I will say, and this is totally different, this is a totally different industry. But you do see companies like Walmart, companies like Costco, say, hey, wait a minute, we can actually, we've got a lot of data here, let's sell this to advertisers.

• 37:53Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 37:54Speaker 05

  And that, those have very quickly become billion dollar businesses. That is not the same thing as a search engine.

• 38:00Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 38:00Speaker 05

  People are typing queries into and then getting responses.

• 38:04Ed Zitron?

  It's not even obvious if they want to advertise, do on search GPT, or whether they just want to do it on the regular chat GPT, because those are two different products. Also, I don't think people realize how difficult search engines are to build. Also, there's like tens of thousands of salespeople at Google, right? Am I right in saying that?

• 38:21Speaker 05

  There's a lot of people.

• 38:22Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, that's like, it just doesn't, it feels like an insanely big lift and also the act, and act somewhat, in my opinion.

• 38:29Speaker 05

  Well, I I'm curious, what what is your, you know, most people as a default hate ads? If they can get Netflix, they want to get it without. I I'm saying, people that can afford it are going to say, hey, I don't want to watch ads. I don't want to engage with that kind of stuff. What do you think about ad-supported media, ads kind of infiltrating everything?

• 38:47Ed Zitron?

  I think if the ads don't ruin the experience, they're fine. If the ads are part of the experience and you see them, I like them in newsletters, even though I may skip over them like the just like immediately. I don't mind if they're not horribly interrupting. The reason I loathe Meta and loathe, like specifically like Instagram in particular, is their ads are. Intrusive and offensive at times. They're annoying and they're not annoying in a way where it's like, oh, there's a banner ad. I can click away from that. It's like, no, you will see this across your entire phone, dickhead. Look at it. Look at the new kind of low carb bagels that don't even taste good. Yeah, they sold some bagels to me, but it's just. I don't mind that. And I also like the option of paying not to have ads.

• 39:30Ed Zitron?

  Like I will do it where I need to like pay for Netflix or pay for Hulu because I actually watch a lot of stuff on there. And then Amazon did that, which is rude, but I don't know. I think ad support is fine. It's just. And one of the reasons why you you want here is listeners need to know it is not just like you go into like adcompany.com. And then buy that for OpenAI and then it works. I also don't think they have a lot of time, but that's a completely different subject. So, all right. To wrap us up. What do you see for the next year within ads? It feels like a very chaotic time, especially with Lena Khan might be on the way out, probably on the way out. What do you think is going to happen? What are you excited for? Or even just interested in?

• 40:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's a good question. I I one thing I'm particularly interested in is this kind of to to my point earlier about everything. There's this cliche. I think Eric Sufer. Coined it. He's an analyst in advertising that everything becomes an ad network. Like if you have an audience, uh, which Ed, I believe you do.

• 40:29Ed Zitron?

  I do.

• 40:29Speaker 05

  Um, you're going to start selling ads, whether you like it or not.

• 40:33Ed Zitron?

  Yeah.

• 40:33Speaker 05

  Because it's found money. It it's money. You looked under your shoe and or you you looked in your pocket and there was.

• 40:38Ed Zitron?

  Got people to sell to, you sell to them.

• 40:40Speaker 05

  Exactly. And and everyone from to what I was saying earlier, everyone from Walmart to clearly OpenAI has basically figured this out. Figure it out. The same thing that Google and Meta did, you know, 20 years ago that. Hey, you can actually monetize this technology by selling advertising. I'm curious to see that now that everything is an ad network. How do you compete within that? If Uber is selling me ads while I am in their car. If I'm an advertiser, well, is Uber a good buy? Is that better than a Google than a Meta? There's going to be a lot of competition in the space and all of these kind of tertiary. Platforms. I'm really curious to see, like, does that mean there's gonna be consolidation?

• 41:23Speaker 05

  Does that mean that there's going to be these kind of like partnerships that pop up? Like, United Airlines, they're gonna start targeting people with ads in the plane on the back of the screens.

• 41:33Ed Zitron?

  Some of them have done that.

• 41:35Speaker 05

  Uh, United Airlines, I believe, is the first to do it.

• 41:37Ed Zitron?

  I swear to God, I saw one, I'm just.

• 41:39Speaker 05

  So you might see an ad, so you might see an ad that everyone sees.

• 41:42Ed Zitron?

  Oh, no, I'm thinking of the wifi, that's my bad.

• 41:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, they're gonna customize the ads to, to each flyer on a United Airlines flight. And that's interesting, so the.

• 41:53Ed Zitron?

  That's interesting, but also, hmm, leave me alone.

• 41:56Speaker 05

  And there's an Elon Musk connection, because the way they can do it is because of Starlink, because they have a partnership with Starlink, which gives them the internet to power the advertising.

• 42:04Ed Zitron?

  So they're able to actually, and a closing question thought. How, at some point, to your point of the thing about ignoring newsletter ads. At some point, I wonder if people are just going to get so over saturated that they just stop breezing up past this stuff. That they're just like, I, I don't care, I don't believe in, like, I don't want to be harassed like this. Because talking to the few normal people I know, the non-dorks, the people on smashing cars, windows, steal people's wallets and such, who listen to the show, of course. Their general thought is like these fucking ads, they're just like overwhelmed by it, everyone's overwhelmed by everything, but the ads part. I'm actually really glad you brought up that everything becomes an ad network thing, because I think everything already kind of has.

• 42:48Ed Zitron?

  It's in your Kindles, your phones, your planes now, I guess, back of the car, you've got some weird thing on the back of Uber driver's things that advertises to you now. It's so weird.

• 42:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, um, I think, yes, people's eyes glaze over, but that's why they're willing to spend seven million dollars to get in the Super Bowl, right?

• 43:07Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 43:08Speaker 05

  You need, there are so few opportunities to get as many eyeballs as possible. And to get people to pay attention, that's why as there's less and less, uh, surviving media out there, it becomes more valuable.

• 43:20Ed Zitron?

  Ryan, thank you so much for joining me. You are one of the best advertisers out there. I'm so glad to have you. Where can people find you?

• 43:26Speaker 05

  Find me on Twitter, Ryan Barwick Morning Brew. I'm so sorry I had to describe ad tech to you.

• 43:32Ed Zitron?

  No, I had you on here. This is literally the most important industry in tech. Like, other than like, microchips. Like, this is actually genuinely a lying thing. You can of course find me, and I have actually changed my Blue Sky name. And no, no, Matt Osowski, I have not rerecorded the ending. I'm very sorry. You can find me on at edzitron.com on Blue Sky. You can still find me on Twitter, but I think I might be bloody done with it.

• 43:55Speaker 05

  That's what they all say.

• 43:56Ed Zitron?

  No, but I barely check it now. I feel like, I feel the same way as I do with Facebook. I'm looking at Instagram more. It's disgusting. Anyway, you've been listening to Better Offline. Thank you so much. Thank you to Daniel Gubinoff, producer as well. Thank you, Ryan. Thanks for listening, of course.

• 44:18Ed Zitron?

  Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Osowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at mattosowski.com. M A T T O S O W S K I dot com. You can email me at [email protected] or visit betteroffline.com to find more podcast links and of course my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat dot wheresyoured dot at to visit the Discord and go to r slash betteroffline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening.

• 44:50Speaker 03

  Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 45:23Speaker 01

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