[cj]

> people who make them pay upwards of 1 dollar per click

FWIW, the cheapest (quality) clicks I've seen, at least in the B2B space, is closer to $3/click, and it can quickly balloon to upwards of $10/click especially on company brand names where competitors are bidding on another company's brand name.

Knowing this, I cringe every time I'm screensharing with someone and they search "[B2B Company] login" to login to a tool they use every day. Each login = $2-$10

It's not uncommon for companies to spend $100k+/year JUST bidding on their own company name.

[collaborative]

It honestly escapes me how these companies can be sustainable. The whole market is sooo inefficient. Companies also pay crazy money to appear in privileged positions in supermarkets shelves, and they will often pay crazy money for simply being in the supermarket at all

I just don't get where all the marketing money is coming from. Bootstrapping is clearly not an option these days

[mrguyorama]

Computers DOUBLED the productivity of the USA since the second world war. All that money went to a few people and groups, and none of it went to average people. For decades, companies have just been sloshing the same giant pile of cash around and around the Ads ecosystem.

That bag of chips did not cost $4 to make, not even a little close.