The banner bidding in the article was intended to level the playing field for advertisers and give sites the best price for ad space. There were always going to

The banner bidding in the article was intended to level the playing field for advertisers and give sites the best price for ad space. There were always going to be ads, however, Google and Facebook sought to undermine that progress which may have allowed publishers to continue to produce advertising funded media. Now we see publishers are forced behind paywalls because online advertising was unable to keep the lights on. Meanwhile Google and Facebook were able to get richer.