> It grows with the size of the economy. Your own words demonstrate the zero sum nature. During COVID YouTube had a huge spike in viewers as people stayed at

> It grows with the size of the economy. Your own words demonstrate the zero sum nature. During COVID YouTube had a huge spike in viewers as people stayed at home, but rates absolutely tanked because the value is defined between advertising budgets and available distribution not some inherent property of a viewer seeing an advertisement. This is just like how gas in aggregate grows with the economy/oil prices not the efficiency of gas stations. It’s these external factors which make them zero sum. > So what you mean to say is that targeted advertising is the same as mass advertising, that there's no benefit, perceived or otherwise, of targeting users. No, I am saying tracking users is one of many methods to target users. The value of individual means of advertising varies, but the ability to target users doesn’t disappear when you ban tracking users. What changes is how valuable individual options are not the total value of all methods of advertising combined. > There's no going back at this point. Things often seem more stable than they actually are. Banning tracking is a tiny blimp compared to the kinds of changes you see after major Supreme Court decisions let alone major events like revolutions.