[choppaface]

Yes, you can definitely flip my argument or criticize it however you please. But I think what would help decide things is to see the hard $$ numbers on why Google thinks FLoC is actually inventive-compatible. They must have done a study here in order for FLoC to get the OK for launch. Maybe that study is right, maybe it’s wrong. But Sundar has—- several times—- admitted that Google has lost trust, and now Google is trying to sell a big change without showing the whole picture. That’s standard MO at McKinsey, but Sundar is now on a much bigger stage. Given the recent evidence showing how closely Google worked with Facebook to bias ad auctions, I think it’s high time we review how Google assesses incentive compatibility.

While I agree with you that Google paying for serving requests or some other equity mechanism sounds just plain odd, there are few tools to deal with multinational monopolies. Tesla is making bank right now in no small part from carbon offsets and consumer tax benefits—- that’s all because Aramco and big oil won’t diverge from their shareholder interests. Google usually welcomes novel web/social mechanisms and it’s very telling when they so thoroughly refute the interests of news sites. Or try to solve the problem with something crappy like AMP.