“Advertising and the Time Bomb at the Heart of the Internet” [NF Review]

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🍂 Related: Digital Minimalism

Review ✍️

Subprime Attention Crisis is one of four titles launching on Tuesday October 13 that comprise a collaboration between publishing imprint FSG Originals and tech magazine Logic. To quote the blog post announcement, “the four books in the FSGO/Logic series are brief but provocative forays into the tech industry’s many worlds, inciting fresh conversations focused on nuanced and accessible explorations of the emerging tools reorganizing and redefining life today”.

Regular readers know such topics are a far cry from the usual content reviewed on my blog. But this title caught my eye as I browsed Netgalley. Internet advertising has a significant impact on anyone reading this. We all see it (even when we diligently use an adblocker). Maybe you have advertising on your blog. Most importantly: we all depend on it as the foundation that supports how the Internet currently functions.

Hwang argues that ineffective internet advertising has built up around inaccurate and unreliable metrics. I thought I knew the basics of how internet advertising works. I learnt a lot more about it from this book. These metrics, along with other factors that Hwang explores, mean the system is poised to fail as the markets did in 2008. As the title implies, Hwang draws comparisons throughout the book to the subprime mortgage crisis. Internet advertising faces a ‘subprime attention crisis’. Why should we care about the potential failure of online advertising, which for most of us is little more than an irritant? Because it’s currently the key that allows us to freely access websites and the information contained within. Hwang concludes with broad suggestions of how the industry might anticipate such a failure and begin to mitigate it.

The nature of Hwang’s subject lends itself to mildly technical language. It reminded me of reading textbooks in university. I can understand the topic generally, but I need to focus to really comprehend what he’s telling me. Finally, I understand the 2008 mortgage crisis, haha. I had to look it up in order to understand Hwang’s comparison.

💭 The Bottom Line

Subprime Attention Crisis may require focused attention from a layperson to comprehend, but its relatively short length and important topic make it a good read for anyone who cares about the long term sustainability of the Internet as we know it.