> Microsoft's evolution into adtech is the natural evolution of industrial capitalism.
How is advertising synonymous with capitalism? If it were communism or socialism we'd likely just call advertising propaganda, but is there a real difference?
To be clear, even if Microsoft was born in a reality where America was Democratic Socialist, wouldn't they be doing the same thing just a slightly different purpose?
Advertising is becoming a bigger share of the global economy. At the same time, the big players are making up a bigger share of the ad market.
It's not absurd to envision a world in the next 30 years in which advertising is >33% of global GDP - and maybe 2-5 companies control >50% of that market.
The math doesn't work. The money to advertise comes from you buying the product. If they pay you enough to actually buy it then the cost of advertising is equal to the price of the product and they make no revenue.
Advertising pays for a lot, but it also doesn't pay that much.
You can never say if something is a bubble until after it pops.
On the other hand, I think there's a convincing argument that people are having more and more of their needs and basic wants met. And if you're in the business of selling things - you need to synthesize wants in your customers.
Only 200 years ago, basically everyone on the planet was a peasant. Only 70 years ago, even middle class people in the US and Europe had a laughably low standard of living by today's measures.
Now, in ~60% of the world (the developed world incl. China) - only a couple percent of the population is a dirt poor.
In many ways, it takes more effort to sell people a seventh computer than their first. In other ways, repeat customers are your easiest sales. Still, you usually need to market even to your repeats...
Still, in order to grow - you can't just sell your existing customers the same thing every year. You need to constantly sell them more...
Agreed. Rather than "grow" I'd prefer to look at organizational success through time in terms of evolution.
That being said, there are tons of companies out there that are huge and do no advertising. Word of mouth, relevance to reality, and quality of product win out over the long term.
How is advertising synonymous with capitalism? If it were communism or socialism we'd likely just call advertising propaganda, but is there a real difference?
To be clear, even if Microsoft was born in a reality where America was Democratic Socialist, wouldn't they be doing the same thing just a slightly different purpose?