Subprime attention crisis (Tim Hwang)
A book that had been in my peripheral vision for some time now and finally picked it up along (way too many) other books.
The main thesis of the book is that digital (targeted) advertising is broken. Both as an overall industry as well as its tech stack and on the customer side. And the industry (sellers, all intermediaries and websites depending on advertising) are more and more pushing to get more ads and grab more of your attention.
The subprime in the book title is used to draw parallels between the ad industry and the 2008 subprime crisis. Be it wrongful reporting, aggregation, commodification and automation of ad management, all leads to a situation similar to the early 2000s financial market. Without the protection or requirements of the SEC or whatever market regulation agency/ministry/organisation actually overseeing the financial markets.
Final word
The book is short but in some way, I feel it should have been (remained?) a blog post. It is interesting. But I don’t think it lives to the expectations I had for it. Or maybe it is because I have been following the topic for some time now and the main thesis of the author has already been included in so many of the critical analyses I read/listen to elsewhere.