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You're sadly downvoted, but you're making a good point. The digital ad companies are at this point operating mature stable businesses in monopoly markets. Do su

You're sadly downvoted, but you're making a good point. The digital ad companies are at this point operating mature stable businesses in monopoly markets. Do such companies really need to invest in R&D?

txcwpalpha 6y ago
How do you think those companies got to be mature monopolies? Someone had to do the research to find out which “hot singles near you” banner ad has the highest conversion rates. I say that tongue-in-cheek, but only partly. There actually is a ton of research that goes into following things like cultural trends and human psychology to ensure maximum ad consumption. Advertising in the middle of a mobile game or on Netflix requires an entirely different school of thought than advertising on traditional cable TV or news websites. A notable “innovation” (though many may not respect it very much) is the new paradigm of advertising stuff via Instagram influencers and the functionality built into the app to facilitate it. Someone had to research and design that, just like such companies now are probably trying to find the best way to advertise in VR/AR platforms or in rideshares.
- sunstone 6y ago
  Digital ad tech may be mature but search is not. If it was then the experience of using any search engine would be very much the same but in my experience that is not close to being true yet.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    But isn't the experience pretty much the identical? Google, Bing and DDG look essentially the same; the two main differences are the colour of the lipstick, and the search index. The main experience - type in words, get suggestions while typing, confirm and have it show relevant webpages + various info/image/videoboxes - it's universal now.
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      Right but the visual experience isn't as much a differentiator as the "does this answer my question" experience, which relies on fairly sota methods in NLP, clustering, etc.
marcinzm 6y ago
They are not monopolies. They own a segment of users but NOT a segment of advertiser budget. They compete with each other for their true customers: advertisers and their money. If one platform gives a higher ROI than another then more advertiser budget will shift to it. Sure, most large advertisers will diversify but even a 1% shift means billions in this case so worth having people try to optimize.

txcwpalpha 6y ago

How do you think those companies got to be mature monopolies? Someone had to do the research to find out which “hot singles near you” banner ad has the highest conversion rates. I say that tongue-in-cheek, but only partly. There actually is a ton of research that goes into following things like cultural trends and human psychology to ensure maximum ad consumption. Advertising in the middle of a mobile game or on Netflix requires an entirely different school of thought than advertising on traditional cable TV or news websites. A notable “innovation” (though many may not respect it very much) is the new paradigm of advertising stuff via Instagram influencers and the functionality built into the app to facilitate it. Someone had to research and design that, just like such companies now are probably trying to find the best way to advertise in VR/AR platforms or in rideshares.

sunstone 6y ago
Digital ad tech may be mature but search is not. If it was then the experience of using any search engine would be very much the same but in my experience that is not close to being true yet.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  But isn't the experience pretty much the identical? Google, Bing and DDG look essentially the same; the two main differences are the colour of the lipstick, and the search index. The main experience - type in words, get suggestions while typing, confirm and have it show relevant webpages + various info/image/videoboxes - it's universal now.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    Right but the visual experience isn't as much a differentiator as the "does this answer my question" experience, which relies on fairly sota methods in NLP, clustering, etc.

marcinzm 6y ago

They are not monopolies. They own a segment of users but NOT a segment of advertiser budget. They compete with each other for their true customers: advertisers and their money. If one platform gives a higher ROI than another then more advertiser budget will shift to it. Sure, most large advertisers will diversify but even a 1% shift means billions in this case so worth having people try to optimize.