I appreciate your engagement in this, Jeff, but I’ve read the post and I agree that it’s rather light in its evaluation of the negative value of ads.
Anyway I guess it’s getting too far off track at this point. Thanks for at least engaging in the conversation, unlike basically everyone. I would love to chat further in private if you have the time. my contact is in my profile.
While this is definitely true for some adtech vendors, none of the work I do is in that category, and to my knowledge none of the work at my employer is either.
(Still speaking only for myself)
Google is and was actively fighting privacy laws[1] (e.g. seeking exemptions allowing them to even track people who consciously opt out of data collection), had a CEO that made no secret about his anti-privacy stance[2], was repeatedly fined[3], also also for violating the privacy of children[4], etc. etc.
How do you reconcile this with your assertion that google and yourself are good players?
[1] https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-09-04/google-and...
[2] https://www.eff.org/de/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-sch...
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/21/technology/google-europe-...
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/technology/google-youtube...
I would not do this work if I thought it was harmful, and if I decided it was harmful there are many jobs I could take instead.
I'm open to being convinced that my work is net negative! I've quit Google before: https://www.jefftk.com/p/leaving-google-joining-wave