Paperback, 176 pages
Published Oct. 13, 2020 by FSG Originals.
In Subprime Attention Crisis, Tim Hwang investigates the way big tech financializes attention. In the process, he shows us how digital advertising--the beating heart of the internet--is at risk of collapsing, and that its potential demise bears an uncanny resemblance to the housing crisis of 2008. From the unreliability of advertising numbers and the unregulated automation of advertising bidding wars, to the simple fact that online ads mostly fail to work, Hwang demonstrates that while consumers' attention has never been more prized, the true value of that attention itself--much like subprime mortgages--is wildly misrepresented. And if online advertising goes belly-up, the internet--and its free services--will suddenly be accessible only to those who can afford it. Deeply researched, convincing, and alarming, Subprime Attention Crisis will change the way you look at the internet, and its precarious future.FSG Originals × Logic dissects the way technology functions in everyday lives. The titans of …
In Subprime Attention Crisis, Tim Hwang investigates the way big tech financializes attention. In the process, he shows us how digital advertising--the beating heart of the internet--is at risk of collapsing, and that its potential demise bears an uncanny resemblance to the housing crisis of 2008. From the unreliability of advertising numbers and the unregulated automation of advertising bidding wars, to the simple fact that online ads mostly fail to work, Hwang demonstrates that while consumers' attention has never been more prized, the true value of that attention itself--much like subprime mortgages--is wildly misrepresented. And if online advertising goes belly-up, the internet--and its free services--will suddenly be accessible only to those who can afford it. Deeply researched, convincing, and alarming, Subprime Attention Crisis will change the way you look at the internet, and its precarious future.FSG Originals × Logic dissects the way technology functions in everyday lives. The titans of Silicon Valley, for all their utopian imaginings, never really had our best interests at heart: recent threats to democracy, truth, privacy, and safety, as a result of tech's reckless pursuit of progress, have shown as much. We present an alternate story, one that delights in capturing technology in all its contradictions and innovation, across borders and socioeconomic divisions, from history through the future, beyond platitudes and PR hype, and past doom and gloom. Our collaboration features four brief but provocative forays into the tech industry's many worlds, and aspires to incite fresh conversations about technology focused on nuanced and accessible explorations of the emerging tools that reorganize and redefine life today.
The online advertising market is the main provider of funds currently sustaining our Internet infrastructure. And it's currently showing all the signs of being a huge bubble that's about to burst. This well documented essay reads like a crime novel.
Presents the problem with the programmatic internet ad market clearly—and thoroughly, repeating things more than I felt was necessary (but, hey, it may be written for an audience whose attention is much more fragmented). Wish it had a more exciting set of suggestions and speculations for a crashed ad market, or even a post-crash internet.
Hwang draws parallels between the current market for online advertising and that for mortgage-backed securities before 2008.
Hwang draws parallels between the current market for online advertising and that for mortgage-backed securities before 2008.
References other worries about online advertising (the ways it shapes what tools get built and how we interact with each other), but very focused on the ways ad tech resembles the 2008 financial crisis: systemically entwined with how internet services and media are funded; opaque automated derivatives trading of supposed value (our attention), in a market of perverse bubble-inflating incentives; and is our attention online actually worth so much more than previous advertising (targeted!) or is it subprime and full of fraud and disinterest?
Hwangâs book takes a deep dive into the inner workings of the adtech industry and compares it, convincingly and in detail, to the subprime mortgage crisis that kicked off the 2008 global economic crisis. Where the industry (dominated by Google and Facebook, with ad auctioneers busy in the background) likes us to think they are âdata-driven wizards of consumer persuasion,â they are actually at the helm of a rickety structure riven by âperverse incentives, outright fraud, and a web economy on the brink.â Yeah, that sounds eerily familiar.returnreturnLike the financial systems that used lightning-fast algorithmic predictions and computerized transactions to buy and sell derivatives that grew increasingly risky, the adtech industry suffers from a similar combination of hubris and opaque complexity thatâs impossible to analyze clearly. Hwang draws an intriguing lesson from James C. Scottâs Seeing Like a State. To administer power over a large population, you need âlegibilityâ â …
Hwangâs book takes a deep dive into the inner workings of the adtech industry and compares it, convincingly and in detail, to the subprime mortgage crisis that kicked off the 2008 global economic crisis. Where the industry (dominated by Google and Facebook, with ad auctioneers busy in the background) likes us to think they are âdata-driven wizards of consumer persuasion,â they are actually at the helm of a rickety structure riven by âperverse incentives, outright fraud, and a web economy on the brink.â Yeah, that sounds eerily familiar.returnreturnLike the financial systems that used lightning-fast algorithmic predictions and computerized transactions to buy and sell derivatives that grew increasingly risky, the adtech industry suffers from a similar combination of hubris and opaque complexity thatâs impossible to analyze clearly. Hwang draws an intriguing lesson from James C. Scottâs Seeing Like a State. To administer power over a large population, you need âlegibilityâ â a way of identifying and tabulating humans and their behavior. To do this, platforms are designed to appropriate data in order to administer ads. returnreturnThough these companies collect an incredibly vast amount of data in violation of our privacy, legibility is one-way. In spite of data about click-throughs and impressions, nobody who places an ad can tell where it will end up or whether it is actually effective. A few big corporations have an outsize impact and no incentives to improve transparency or even simple accuracy. Hwang cites a claim Facebook once made about its ability to reach a coveted American youth demographic, stating it could put ads in front of 25 million more people in that age range than actually live in the entire US; its disastrous âpivot to videoâ claims cost media companies time, energy, and a lot of money.returnreturnWhatâs more, those dollars are chasing a dwindling audience, especially among younger people who increasingly use ad blockers, and a lot of the attention metrics are fraudulent. Many ads are never seen by anyone, and a large percentage of the âviewersâ for those âseenâ are non-human, automated systems designed to pump up the numbers. Hwang provides an in-depth analysis of how the financial incentives parallel the subprime mortgage crisis: people have more money to spend than they have places to put it. Google and Facebook not only absorb most digital ad dollars, they are replacing the media outlets that depend on ads â newspapers, for instance. As more people get their news directly through ad-driven platforms, traditional and new media watch their ability to influence the ad industry leached away, along with attention.returnreturnHwang names, though doesnât spend much time on, the anti-social tendencies of ad-driven persuasion, but urges us to recognize an economic bubble that will soon burst. The longer it has to grow, the more damaging the consequences. He urges us to imagine an alternative and to do a âcontrolled demolitionâ to avoid disaster. He argues for independent industry research to inform our understanding of digital advertisingâs effects, legal protection for whistle-blowers, and recommends a regulatory overhaul similar to those imposed after the 1929 crash as a model for public accountability and the rebuilding of a more robust, bubble-proof internet. Apparently itâs one that might still be largely financed by advertising, (I wasnât sure) but it would be less fraudulent and opaque.returnreturn"The internet we have, for better or worse, is yoked to the structure and prospects of the advertising economy by the business models, companies, and economics that have dominated over the last few decades. If this system of advertising is brittle, then the internet as we know it is brittle. Whether we leave these marketplaces deregulated and feral or implement systems to manage them for public benefit will define not just the future of advertising, but the future of the technologies that have shaped and continue to shape our society."returnreturnHwangâs focus is on advertising as the financial backbone of the internet. The problems caused by giant corporations and their data-sucking assaults on privacy isnât so much that they suck data, in his estimation, as that they suck at advertising, yet have been able to build fortunes through misleading and increasingly ineffective practices. He's a good guide to the problems caused by adtech and what might happen if we don't do something before the bubble bursts.
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