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The Laziness of the Ad-First Economy
In 2025, digital advertising is looking more like a pyramid scheme than a sustainable marketing model. As John Kilhefner explains in his HackerNoon article, the obsession with pageviews and impressions has led to a bloated, user-hostile web—filled with pop-ups, autoplay videos, and trackers that drive readers away. Publishers chase clicks at the expense of quality, while brands spend millions on ads that users increasingly ignore or block. The result? A fragile ecosystem where trust erodes and ROI quietly collapses under the weight of empty metrics. ...