> And that's in a nutshell both the solution and the problem because users have only so much to spend on product.

I don't see the problem? It's probably much more expensive per impression than traditional advertising, but probably much less expensive per sale (which is the metric that matters). This arms race means that if I'm a plumbing supply company, I can now spend my money on displaying ads for specific plumbing goods to people searching for specific plumbing goods, even when that means I'm going to hit some people no longer in the market for these goods -- but even hitting people who are no longer in the market is vastly better then hitting people who were never in the market. This lowers the barrier to entry (less cash required to advertise your products) which means more and better competition which means prices go down.

But that's not at all what happens. First, the plumbing company buys ad space from that morass of companies in the article's diagram. Then the add distribution network decides who sees the ads. And in the specific case we're talking about, users didn't see the relevant ads until after they made a plumbing purchase. So it failed at every level.

They don't appear to be targeting people who are in the market for plumbing supplies and hitting a few who already have them, from what we can tell. They appear to not be targeting people who are in the market at all until after they're out of the market.

I remember the talk the former Prime Minister of Poland gave to technology students on event I was attending; he retold this joke and wished us to be "the guy with the running shoes" in today's competitive market. I recall feeling pretty disgusted by this remark. I guess I prefer cooperation over competition.

It's not a proven thing that humanity would excel if people co-operated instead of competed. So what we have instead is this hybrid: groups of people co-operating in competing with other groups, think team sports, the various tech challenges, companies competing for market share and so on.

The only places in which people are really competing directly with each other are in the labor market (which drives the price of labor down) and in professional sports or other one-on-one contests.

Almost everywhere else we co-operate before we compete.

So far this model is a bit like democracy, it may not be optimal but it seems to be the best we have. If you can improve on that model you'll go places but you're going to be ironically in competition with everybody else!

I guess it's not proven, though it seems intuitively obvious (which, I admit, is often the sign of pitfalls) ;). I think what hit me during that talk wasn't glorification of competition per se, it was promoting ruthless competition. In the end, team sports and tech challenges are healthy as long as everyone remembers it's just a game and doesn't treat it too seriously. It works in business too, but there people often forget - sometimes because of greed, and sometimes because money is like hit points - losing them hurts; lose enough and you die.

Also interesting note: from my experience, most tech companies aren't really competitive. The market is big enough that most successful companies either compete superficially or sometimes outright cooperate, even when working in the same market.

It's called an eco-system for a reason, the parallels are many and the differences few.

>It's not a proven thing that humanity would excel if people co-operated instead of competed.

It doesn't matter if it's proven or not. We're (hopefully) not automata just doing what's proven to make us excel without consideration for the others.