@benjojo I mean, how can you measure stuff if you can't link causes? that'd be just guess work

@benjojo Oh do I have thoughts on this. I think that, counterintuitively enough, they increase wealth inequality. Ads let you offer the same content to both the rich and the poor, charging everybody exactly as much as they can pay. The rich generally buy more stuff, which means more of their money goes towards companies' marketing expenses, which ultimately ends up subsidizing the services they use. The internet basically runs on progressive taxation and socialist ideals now, and we don't even notice.

@benjojo
This is all supposing that ad providers aren't lying about any ad views or ad-related conversions.
I remember reading about companies nuking all Meta ad spend, and not losing any sales because meta was already lying about which sales were actually generated from the ads, and which were generated by showing the ads to people (which already were going to buy), right when they got their paycheck

On this framework, ad blockers are GDP decreasers because they don't allow the transfer of money to Meta, and instead that money _could_ go to local businesses which will spend it more locally, actually increasing the _domestic_ product instead of the CEO's-gold-hoard product

Also GDP is a useless metric but that's unrelated to the question :P

@benjojo IIRC the efficacy of ads is already slightly suspect, let alone online ads.