With regards to the title, the age of advertising as it is today is likely going to have to change. Some of the largest companies in the world have advertising

With regards to the title, the age of advertising as it is today is likely going to have to change. Some of the largest companies in the world have advertising as their main revenue, and this is a growing trend. Another growing trend is users’ rights over their data, as well as their awareness of the situation and their willingness to exercise those rights. To me, it feels that there’s a natural limit, and a natural instability built in to the entire model: ad revenue depends on users, users don’t like ads. But there’s a third factor at play: their reputation. Ad revenue makes companies so much money that they try to branch out with ridiculous things that end up costing them users (Twitter, Google, Microsoft, Meta - all have shifted towards dumb ideas in the last couple of years and their reputations are all in the gutter because of it). As a result, their risky Skynet-wannabe (or in the case of Meta, Lawnmower-Man-wannabe) investments are hurting their core income stream, and they’re resorting to faux-austerity as a result. It’s embarrassing to watch. However, I disagree with the article for a variety of reasons. The main one is “capitalism bad” has never been a viable mechanism for something to cease existing, and while companies make money from it, they’ll do it. Government isn’t incentivised to intervene too strongly because people buying things turns out to be good for the economy and good for the tax man, even if those things are the result of irrational decisions (and even if the aforementioned companies pay so little in tax anyway that it barely scratches the surface).