Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business

Do they though really...

Microsoft Linux contribution is almost completely around making run better on azure or wsl not making Linux itself better.

For open source they are attempting to control the mind share with dotnet, vscode, GitHub aka embrace phase

We have started seeing signs of the extended phase in all 3 projects

We all know what phase 3 of eee is

This is a great point- I dramatically oversimplified what is going on. I do wonder how this is discussed internally. Since I started working as a dev back in the late 90s I feel like a lot of the optimism I had from tech improving our lives has largely been erased. Its probably just me getting old and pessimistic though :).

I think that might be a great reason why! To make windows a unified advertising identifier.

ATT (and verizon tried too) got these ad platforms because they wanted to unite their 1st party user device data to an advertising graph.

They tried to enable targeting individuals (on harder to 1:1 target devices too). But they never seemed to actually merge the two 'pipes' together that well.

Because google & apple have blocked more targeted advertising for everyone but themselves, creating a competing platform that doesn't rely on 3p cookies or IDFA etc would be really valuable.

FB direct response ads are totally dead for us. Apple & google killed it. We use Xandr and they do have some broad demo 1p targeting segments, device expansion, but it's nothing like FB. Still have to use a 3rd party to load 1:1 lists, at least we do.

Google already has a huge login base on the web. In addition, AFAIK google includes a uuid in chrome that only google properties can read - I have never found info on if they use that for ad targeting, or correct my memory if i'm wrong on that?

Microsoft could create something like that. They would probably have to expand IE use or do something shady in between chrome and the web.

Maybe if they want to get into streaming too - blurg.

OR a better idea imho would be a microsoft smart tv, MSFT SSP + exclusive to xandr inventory included. There is some gaming advertising too that could be thought out and expanded. Maybe bundle xbox inside a tv, sell it at a loss to stream ads.

The answer isn't microtransactions. Even if you solve the payment problem, Microtransactions involves huge amounts of new friction and creating an entirely new selling process and method.

I think the answer is in federation and mutually owned infrastructure.

People are comfortable paying Netflix/Hulu/Crunchyroll $10-15 per month. They don't have to worry about "do I want to watch this episode enough to spend 45 cents for it?" or "do I need to make and manage a whole new account just to watch a different show?" The fact the money eventually gets divvied up to content creators is handwaved away behind the scenes.

Federation gives other creators the opportunity to sell a similar one-stop-shopping experience you that. I could imagine, say, a subscription where I'd get through the paywall not just on my local newspaper, but the dozens of other papers that might print one or two articles a month that I care about. Or a Patreon-style service where you unlocked everyone for a flat fee, and they use analytics to determine how much of the fee goes to each creator each month.

The problem is that most of the content is living on third-party platforms. An OnlyFans or YouTube, for example, could offer a subscription around that model, but they'd just vaccuum up most of the revenue generated for themselves. The creators have to own the platform themselves to prevent that sort of diversion.

I feel it's strange that this kind of hyperbolic response to a network adapter driver bug is considered normal discourse.