In addition to the higher ad costs leading to higher costs for the consumer and the resulting funneling of those consumers to only a handful of outfits, a major

In addition to the higher ad costs leading to higher costs for the consumer and the resulting funneling of those consumers to only a handful of outfits, a major point from the article is the "Smart Campaigns". Google is exploiting small businesses' lack of marketing expertise to push them, often persistently, to using automatic, algorithm based targeting instead of manual keyword targeting. The result is that a lot of the money they put up for advertising goes into a black hole devoid of useful exposure due to the useless keywords that the algorithm picks for them. They're not just being outbid by larger outfits, but are being lead to believe that they can compete with said outfits by using Google's "Smart Campaigns". Google gets the money from both, but one is being relegated to space that leads to nothing.