Advertising exists, and I have no problem talking about that as a whole. "Paid influencing" is <1% of that near trillion dollar market. The real meat is divide

Advertising exists, and I have no problem talking about that as a whole. "Paid influencing" is <1% of that near trillion dollar market. The real meat is divided between giants like Google and FB. They own the platforms, dictate terms and cut content makers in on a sliver when and if they choose. That is true for music, porno, instagram garden influencing... The advertising buyer side has a megacorp presence, but it's mostly a lot of everything and there's not much power concentration. Platforms generally want to own the connections. Advertiser-influencer, artist-listener, youtuber-viewer, etc. Sponsorships and paid placement is a workaround. It's what TV, cinema, games and such got away with for decades. Maybe there are transparency rules or somesuch somewhere... but nowhere does regulation upend the business model or get overly handsy. When it's an instagram people instead disney, open season. I'm not against regulating advertising. I just think picking on the smallest, ugliest kid and then running off is scapegoating.