Thread · 4 tweets · 8 Jun 2021

I'd like to challenge the adtech bit :) I hypothesise that putting ads next to trash content isn't inherently profitable — even if you can keep people glued to the trash content by making it more trash. Why? Because trash content is a poor predictor of sales conversion.

The way this is made profitable is by getting signals that *are* strong predictors of sales conversions from other places (because people who watch trash content have otherwise normal lives), and then targeting them there.

So my theory (which needs validation) is that if you prevent this transfer of information about valuable targeting, you close the money funnel that goes from quality content to trash content with high engagement.

The fact that the biggest trackers (G, FB) are the biggest purveyors of trash content (YT, FB) is probably not a coincidence if this theory is true :)