Casey Newton

And so, yeah, what I noted over the past decade was every year, there's another box, there's another widget, there's another answer, and there's one fewer what time is the Super Bowl bonanza for publishers to count on.

Right. And it is a great example because we all ran into it and we were all annoyed by it. And this was just one of many things that Google did to take over the web experience. They also created the Chrome web browser. The Chrome web browser helps to dictate HTML standards, how web pages are built, how browsers interpret them. It's able to exert pressure in that way. So it's not just...

Right. And it is a great example because we all ran into it and we were all annoyed by it. And this was just one of many things that Google did to take over the web experience. They also created the Chrome web browser. The Chrome web browser helps to dictate HTML standards, how web pages are built, how browsers interpret them. It's able to exert pressure in that way. So it's not just...

Right. And it is a great example because we all ran into it and we were all annoyed by it. And this was just one of many things that Google did to take over the web experience. They also created the Chrome web browser. The Chrome web browser helps to dictate HTML standards, how web pages are built, how browsers interpret them. It's able to exert pressure in that way. So it's not just...

Like in what order do links appear on webpages? Like Google is actually dictating the shape of the web itself through all these different things.

Like in what order do links appear on webpages? Like Google is actually dictating the shape of the web itself through all these different things.

Like in what order do links appear on webpages? Like Google is actually dictating the shape of the web itself through all these different things.

Yeah, they built like the greatest highway system that the internet had ever seen. And then over time, it is just shrunk to the size of a parking lot. And anybody who searches it is just like driving around in a circle in the parking lot. And why did that happen?

Yeah, they built like the greatest highway system that the internet had ever seen. And then over time, it is just shrunk to the size of a parking lot. And anybody who searches it is just like driving around in a circle in the parking lot. And why did that happen?

Yeah, they built like the greatest highway system that the internet had ever seen. And then over time, it is just shrunk to the size of a parking lot. And anybody who searches it is just like driving around in a circle in the parking lot. And why did that happen?

I mean, I think my answer to that would be that Google just wound up being arguably the biggest economic victor from the internet in terms of certainly the amount of digital advertising revenue that they were able to generate from the internet. And digital advertising revenue is like the single biggest category of revenue, I think. Is that true? Well, I don't know. We should look that up.

I mean, I think my answer to that would be that Google just wound up being arguably the biggest economic victor from the internet in terms of certainly the amount of digital advertising revenue that they were able to generate from the internet. And digital advertising revenue is like the single biggest category of revenue, I think. Is that true? Well, I don't know. We should look that up.

I mean, I think my answer to that would be that Google just wound up being arguably the biggest economic victor from the internet in terms of certainly the amount of digital advertising revenue that they were able to generate from the internet. And digital advertising revenue is like the single biggest category of revenue, I think. Is that true? Well, I don't know. We should look that up.

We'll look that up.

We'll look that up.

We'll look that up.

The publishing industry, it was really amazing when it was just like newspapers, but nobody was making $100 billion a year, right? Like Google was able to just sort of go out and over the years, more and more of the advertising revenue just accrued to Google. Like Google just became like the most powerful thing and publishers just became... disempowered. They laid people off.

The publishing industry, it was really amazing when it was just like newspapers, but nobody was making $100 billion a year, right? Like Google was able to just sort of go out and over the years, more and more of the advertising revenue just accrued to Google. Like Google just became like the most powerful thing and publishers just became... disempowered. They laid people off.

The publishing industry, it was really amazing when it was just like newspapers, but nobody was making $100 billion a year, right? Like Google was able to just sort of go out and over the years, more and more of the advertising revenue just accrued to Google. Like Google just became like the most powerful thing and publishers just became... disempowered. They laid people off.

They scrambled, you know, whatever they could do to like get up high on those search results, they would do. It would work for a time. Then the algorithm would change. Then, you know, more people would be laid off. Like all of this just had like a downward pressure on the quality of things. Like people couldn't afford to take big swings anymore. They couldn't afford to to hire big staffs anymore.