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The math’s not pretty on digital advertising’s future revenues? (2017)

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Re: The math’s not pretty on digital advertising’s future revenues? (2017)

#2
> But these stocks are based on a reality that no longer exists. The emperor has no clothes.

Ok, buy deep OTM put options for tech stocks then?

They say the market can stay irrational longer than you can remain solvent. I’d say the market wasn’t all that rational to begin with. At some level investing is a big game of chicken where you try to get out before everyone realizes how inflated it’s become.

As Taleb says, don’t tell me what you think, show me your portfolio.

Re: The math’s not pretty on digital advertising’s future revenues? (2017)

#4
This is an open secret among techonomists and others in the arcane space of digital campaign measurement.[0][1- preprint] Digital advertising has a lot of smoke and mirrors. There is _some_ incrementality, but it seems oversold.

[0] https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/130/4/1941/191...

[1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2498290_cod...

Re: The math’s not pretty on digital advertising’s future revenues? (2017)

#6
lead sentence: “Today, its market cap — the total value of the company ...”

really? there’s a single person reading this that won’t know what market cap is? i stopped reading.

edit: also, TFA is dated material and could use a 2017 tag. also important because its predictions have failed to come true.

Re: The math’s not pretty on digital advertising’s future revenues? (2017)

#8
post #2

> But these stocks are based on a reality that no longer exists. The emperor has no clothes. Ok, buy deep OTM put options for tech stocks then? They say the market can stay irrational longer than you can remain solvent. I’d say the market wasn’t all that rational to begin with. At some level investing is a big game of chicken where you try to get out before everyone realizes how inflated it’s become. As Taleb says, d…

"Buy options" and "don't put this in to your passive retirement fund" are two very different levels of gloom-and-dooming. The market might actually become rational over the next 50+ years; there is such a thing as true information that can't be used to make money in any reasonable term. Another example of true information that can't be used to make money is information that is already priced in. Since this author is not exactly the first tech doomsayer I would be surprised if the future where everyone goes back to highway billboards is not already contributing to the price.

Re: The math’s not pretty on digital advertising’s future revenues? (2017)

#9
post #4

This is an open secret among techonomists and others in the arcane space of digital campaign measurement.[0][1- preprint] Digital advertising has a lot of smoke and mirrors. There is _some_ incrementality, but it seems oversold. [0] https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/130/4/1941/191... [1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2498290_cod...

And how much of the internet is powered by digital advertising? The web will look a lot different if that bubble bursts.

Re: The math’s not pretty on digital advertising’s future revenues? (2017)

#10
post #7

So, here we are in 2017 Here we almost are in 2019. The authors premise seems sound, but it hasn’t happened (yet).

Looking forward to seeing this posted in 2021 and 2023 with the hypothesized massive drop in google’s valuation having failed to materialize.
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