It&#x27;s not surprising that this article is at the top of HN because a surprisingly large contingent of HN is convinced, against all evidence, that advertising doesn&#x27;t work.<p>Unfortunately, the article doesn&#x27;t actually offer <i>any</i> evidence of there being a bubble in advertising. If anything, online advertising is actually being underbought at the moment.<p>For there to be a bubble, advertising spend would have to be growing at a rate which outpaces supply of advertising space. In fact, when it comes to online advertising the reverse is true.<p>Consider first that advertising <i>in general</i> is actually a remarkably boring business. The entire industry consistently consumes 1-2% of GDP, and we have not gone out of that historical band. [1] There&#x27;s just not much evidence of there being a bubble in the overall advertising industry.<p>When it comes to internet advertising specifically, the argument for a bubble is even weaker. Ad spend on internet platforms (particularly mobile) continues to lag behind consumer attention. [2] Consumers are spending tons of time on mobile, but advertisers aren&#x27;t spending nearly enough on mobile to match that supply. If anything, I think advertisers should be spending $10-20B more on internet advertising than they do.<p>Finally, consider that advertising prices are at rock bottom. That seems extraordinarily inconsistent with there being a bubble. The author ignores this fact by attempting to insinuate that the bubble is entirely investor-driven, but that doesn&#x27;t match his hypothesis. Firstly, if investors are currently subsidizing the entire online advertising industry, then when investment pulls back we would fully expect advertising prices to rise—enabling the investors to be paid back (ie. not a bubble). Secondly, it doesn&#x27;t match my experience: the late 2000s was a good time to be in adtech or social media, but these days most VCs aren&#x27;t actually that interested in the sector.<p>Yes, advertising is annoying. Maybe it &quot;doesn&#x27;t work&quot; on you. But that&#x27;s not an argument against it being an effective industry, <i>especially</i> if you&#x27;re arguing against targeted online advertising specifically. The biggest online ad budgets are very tightly run and you can be quite sure that the advertisers have studied and confirmed that they have a significant ROI.<p>Finally, one note about the insinuation that &quot;it&#x27;s going to get ugly&quot; because adtech companies have our personal data. This ignores how incredibly noisy and inaccurate most adtech data is. It&#x27;s &quot;accurate&quot; in aggregate, using statistical models, but it&#x27;s just not very reliable when it comes to an individual. When the individual data is not accurate or trustable, the capacity for danger (or blackmail?) is extremely limited.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;bw&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2014-03-03&#x2F;advertisings-century-of-flat-line-growth" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;bw&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2014-03-03&#x2F;advertisings...</a>
[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kpcb.com&#x2F;internet-trends" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kpcb.com&#x2F;internet-trends</a>