The early internet was open. It was built on blue links, traffic referrals and users flowing between destinations. Every site did one or two things well, then passed people along. Attention shifted over time as portals, social networks, and search engines fought to become the start of a journey, but rarely the end of it. Businesses learned to navigate each wave, studying algorithms, adapting behavior and understanding the value of owning their customer data. Formats evolved from static images to video to vertical clips.
The auction has never been the real center of power, and it will not be in the future. What will decide the fate of the open web is who controls the data that drives monetization and the artificial intelligence that determines distribution. Google holds the advantage in both, yet the proposed remedies in the ad tech antitrust trial do not address it.
You know the old adage "garbage in, garbage out"? Well, it applies to the walled gardens, too, even with all of their access to first-party data. The big ad platforms have been investing more in end-to-end automated systems for planning, launching and optimizing ad campaigns, but they still need high-quality data inputs to feed those tools.
