Or newspapers, both before and after it. They've always been vast advertising platforms, but don't have anywhere near the same stigma that online advertisers h

Or newspapers, both before and after it. They've always been vast advertising platforms, but don't have anywhere near the same stigma that online advertisers have acquired (for extremely good reasons imo - they're as invasive as possible, while printed media has rather tight limits) They could have become the dominant advertisers online too, and then no doubt they'd be just as nasty. But they lost that war multiple times, first to doubleclick-likes and then to social media.