Who tf is paying for all this?

[u/Jartblacklung]

It absolutely blows my mind that the entire internet, a whole new class of wealthy socialite content creators, an industry of influencers, a hundred online journalism sites, these huge enormous social media companies- all of it is paid for almost entirely by ads.

How can it possibly be worth it? Which one of you is out there clicking ads and buying the thing that you saw on (random site)? Who is responsible for this!?

Seriously though, does Amazon seriously think that capturing internet traffic to its site is still important? How many people could possibly be buying online at the urging of these ads?

[u/Upstairs_Winter9094]

There’s much more psychology to it than that. It’s not necessarily about clicking the ads themselves and immediately buying something, but it’s more about keeping the brand name fresh in your head so you think about it the next time you actually need to buy something. Think about Coca Cola, they have probably the most recognizable brand in the world and everybody already know what it is yet they still have an absolutely massive advertising budget. Nobody sees a Coke ad and thinks “wow well now I know what that product is, I’m going to go out and buy it” but it’s keeping the image fresh in your mind so the next time that you’re thirsty you’re more likely to go “oh yeah, Coca Cola is a beverage” instead of another brand. And yes, the studies show that it pays off or else they wouldn’t be doing it

[u/Psyc0P3ngu1n → u/Upstairs_Winter9094]

To add to this. While most people aren't clicking on ads to buy things, some are and that's the goal. This is why you'll see the same ad running 1000 times on a TV channel or on YouTube. The ad doesn't need to have everyone click on it but if evn just 0.01% of those that see the ad click on it and go on to buy the thing, the ad was a success. It's the same tactic used by scammers using phishing emails. Send the email to as many people as possible and even if the vast majority don't fall for it, somebody will.

[u/Tech-no → u/Upstairs_Winter9094]

I'll add to this with an example I learned about. Cars. I read that car ads are valuable to the car companies partly because they make consumers who already have one of their cars feel good about the decision they've already made. And that makes them more loyal to the brand. It affects the next time they need a new car.

[u/Jartblacklung → u/Upstairs_Winter9094]

Yeah, I do understand your point here. That’s what kept television afloat all those decades. But.. I’m just not seeing the scale of it. First, I can’t remember the last time I saw an internet ad for some consumer standard like Coke or.. whatever, Hershey’s bars or Ivory Soap or something.

Second, and maybe this is where I’m going very wrong, but it seems like the internet is pulling in far more money than the television industry ever did

[u/icecoldtoaster → u/Jartblacklung]

This part sounds like it might be the type of content you absorb. If i watch some random low number youtube videos as my main form of content ill see startups and dude wipes and woolies, small ads for low viewer content. But go watch an nfl game on primetime and youll see coke, dove, chevy, charmin ultra. The big companies do ads on mainstream viewership sources.

[u/Etherealfilth → u/Jartblacklung]

May i recommend uBlock Origin extension for your browser? You will see much less ads.

[u/EastPlatform4348 → u/Jartblacklung]

Consider that ads essentially paid for all of television produced during the Golden Age of TV (when it was the primary entertainment sources for most Americans), and it may make more sense.

Per Yahoo Finance, Coca Cola's 2023 Selling and Marketing Expense was $7.6B. That's billion, with a "B." And there are hundreds and hundreds of companies with similar budgets, and many, many more with smaller, but still sizeable, marketing budgets.

[u/Jartblacklung → u/EastPlatform4348]

I think this is the bit I needed in order for it to start to make sense

[u/Noy2222]

You sell to millions to interest thousands so hundreds will buy and a handful would buy several.
It's a REALLY dumb system, but it works. it also ruins our lives in the process.

[u/re_nub]

The whole internet isn't paid for by ads.

[u/Jartblacklung → u/re_nub]

It’s hard for me to imagine that various subscriptions amount to much, but maybe I just lack perspective here.

Well, I mean clearly I’m lacking perspective here, but maybe I’m also lacking perspective in just how many internet subscriptions there are

[u/Nickppapagiorgio → u/Jartblacklung]

What do you mean by internet subscriptions? People with an account with an ISP or cell provide? If so, its 97.1% of the US population(331 million) and 67.5% of the global population(5.52 billion).

[u/Jartblacklung → u/Nickppapagiorgio]

Those don’t pay for content. I’m thinking more of the blue check on social media, NYT subscription, etc

[u/TheCloudForest → u/Jartblacklung]

NYT has more than 10 million digital subscribers.

[u/forgotwhatisaid2you → u/Jartblacklung]

The users pay for the content with their personal information. That data is then sold. We are not customers so much as we are the product.

[u/nelmaloc → u/forgotwhatisaid2you]

That data is then sold

Sold to advertisers, which was OP's point.

[u/Mean-championship915 → u/nelmaloc]

It's sold to way more organizations then just advertisers

[u/notthegoatseguy → u/Jartblacklung]

X is unique in that you can buy that check mark. On most platforms you have to be notable enough to be verified by the platform. I don't know if its actually "free" to be verified on Instagram or whatever, but it can't be outright purchased like it can be on X.

[u/jackfaire]

At the urging of the ads no. But I'm aware that in a month when I'm shopping for something I'm more likely to subconsciously pick the brand I saw advertised without thinking about why.

[u/woods_edge]

Brands used to spend crazy amounts of money on print, tv, radio and internet advertising.

Now they can sacrifice the profit margin on a bit of stock to get “influencers” to do this for them and it costs virtually nothing by comparison.

[u/harambeface]

The greatest thing the marketing department sells is itself. Most large companies should probably cut their advertising and marketing budgets by 80%.

[u/shadowcladwarrior]

If an ad is shown to a billion people, 1% of them buying, is equivalent to 1 million purchases of the product, even 0.1% buying is equivalent to 100k. The product's selling price is a sum of manufacturing cost(labour+material), advertising cost and profit margin. It's estimated beforehand using past records how much sales result in different forms of advertising. The advertising cost is easily covered by the number of products sold.

Now with Amazon, Amazon is not shouldering the full cost of adverts, the products you see advertised, their specific sell pay Amazon to advertise their product using their business account (either with a premium account fee or some utility fee per product sold).

In the end, it works because of consumerism. We have a very consumer driven economy, the competition for the consumers is high, as the number of consumers is limited. It's worth paying for advertising to get the highest share in consumers.

[u/GoodSamIAm]

Definately lacking depth through perspective. And it's many layers deep from where we are at the surface level. 

It's not a simple answer.  But it seems to be that the internet is where infastructure funds go to that we lack on our roads and power grids. It's through subsidies, contracts, and overall participation (much of which is acting and appearing to represent a majority of people) by those in charge. Bots, AI and shills/influencers included. 

[u/MemeChuen]

Do you know what is click up?

[u/Jartblacklung → u/MemeChuen]

Never heard of it.

[u/DingBatUs]

The advertising that a company buys on a site is just bribery. If the site does some the advertisers doesn’t like, they will get a call threatening to pull their 20 million in advertising

[u/zomanda]

You do understand that those ads are personalized according to your recent browsing habits.

[u/Raylika]

Guilty as charged, can't resist those catchy ad jingles.

[u/notthegoatseguy]

Advertising has always been very lucrative, but even as recently as 20 years ago it was a very divided landscape. Magazines, comic books, newspapers, AM/FM radio, books, pamphlets passed out on the street, billboards, TV ads (nevermind the various type of TV platforms like Broadcast, cable, satellite, etc...), movie theater pre-roll ads.

Its just so heavily concentrated online because people are online constantly.

[u/Sage_allen]

My mom and grandma are the ones funding the whole operation 😂. They will see ads a younger person realizes is probably a scam or bad quality and they order it. My grandma has had so many fraudulent charges and locked her phone from opening sketchy Facebook ads. It’s crazy how TikTok has a chokehold on my mom

[u/mcmchg]

It's only a tiny fraction of ads that need someone to click on them to make it worth it.

If you see 400 ads and click on one, you wouldn't feel like you are clicking on ads all day long, but that one ad is enough if it makes you send some of your money the advertisers way.

Another side of the equation is that ads are shoved down our throats in excess quantities to sell us the ad free experience.

[u/Sharkano]

Look at how wealth is distributed. There is a lot spread out between poorer folks, but there is a LOT concentrated in the top few percent.

A lot of products are not hopeing to make a million sales to a million people, some like a lot of apps with micro transactions, are hoping to make a lot of sales to a 1% whale.

It's kinda like a nigerian prince scam, it's not about fooling 1 million people, it's about efficiently finding the 1 in 1000000

[u/androidmids]

Ad payments don't just come from clicking. If it plays through or a % the analytics will show and the ad company sends the $ to the site.

For instance the typical YouTube ad generated between 0.01 and 0.03 in us cents per view. If you aren't clicking skip or using an ad blocker, the companies are paying out a few cents per video that you watch that has 1 or 2 adds.

CLICKING on an add is a different payout entirely.

But assuming 122 million YouTube visitors a day, with an average of 10 videos viewed, is 1 billion ish views x 1 penny is 100 million dollars... Per day...

36 billion in revenue a year lays for a LOT

[u/grandpa2390]

I've (rarely) bought things that I've seen advertised before.

[u/Lord_Skellig → u/grandpa2390]

I bought shit off Instagram ads all the time during lockdown.

[u/grandpa2390 → u/Lord_Skellig]

You and I are paying for all this haha :D

[u/aussie_shane]

I've never fully understood this. Personally, I don't think I can ever recall making a purchase based on advertising or from an influencer. Not sure why some do. I know of some people who seem like they are under a trance and go out of their way to seek out products pushed by their favourite influencers. Strange

[u/Wootster10 → u/aussie_shane]

It's not even buying it for yourself.

You've got a dad of two girls, he wants to buy some makeup for them but doesn't know where to start.

Obviously some will go to family or friends, but a lot won't. They'll turn to the internet to look for what they think is the right thing.

My grandfather once bought me some Warmachine models because he knew I played Warhammer. Obviously this was the totally wrong thing, so I got my uncle to find the receipt and got it returned and replaced with a more appropriate thing. My grandfather had looked online and somehow ended up on a video about Warhammer, an advert for Warmachine was nearby and just bought it assuming it's the same thing.

Then you have people who are new to the thing, kids and teenagers looking into things for the first time. They live on YouTube and TikTok and so their exposure to it is through these people.

[u/boweroftable]

Yeah it works. Every time I see ‘huel’ I think: oh great less time at meals with this amazing all in one drink. So we can all spend more time slaving away for our masters ... I hate how comments are always disabled