[jimbob45]

It sounds like what you're saying is that online ads are becoming less and less effective due to customers getting trained to ignore/block ads. However, companies are responding by attempting to improve their ad targeting instead of facing the reality that online ads aren't effective anymore.

What will happen in five years when advertisers have to face the reality through numbers that online ads don't work anymore?

[PretzelFisch]

I think you will see the online ad-bubble pop, and probably then next recession because of it.

[lioeters]

That's how I see it too.

The other day I came across a headline where Facebook announced that they removed 3 billion fake accounts. It made me wonder whether advertisers were paying to show ads to those accounts.

My view is that the bubble is bursting from the side of the advertisers realizing the in/effectiveness of ads; and from the side of the "advertisees", people generally becoming aware that ads are a security/privacy issue, and ignoring or blocking them altogether.

Relative to the amount of data tracking (theft of privacy) that goes on, most ads are shockingly irrelevant. It's about time the bubble popped.