[freeopinion]

Doubleclick did not invent advertising.

Has everyone forgotten OTA broadcast television? Where Geritol spent a fortune advertising on the Lawrence Welk Show? And Kellogs flooded Saturday morning cartoons?

I may be wrong, but I don't think advertisers have boosted their budgets in the age of targeted advertising. Google has done well to replace the old channels for advertising with their own pipeline. For the last twenty years it has mattered which ad platform could more accurately target your demographic. Google has won most of that war. Today, you pay Google whether the ad is targeted or not. So now, they can shift the battlefront to create other barriers to entry. And to keep people dependent on their infrastructure to package and deliver advertising at all.