Google and Meta collectively employ how many software people in the United States? The jobs hit would be unimaginable. High octane nightmare fuel, that idea.
You're right. What was I thinking? Instead, they should be unemployed and starving, and all the services they bought from other Americans with their $200k/year salaries, those Americans should also be unemployed and starving too. All because you don't want to see an ad on whatever ridiculous social media it is that people are visiting now days. That will make the world right.
"...total advertising has averaged about 1.3% to 2% of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) over the past 20 years. ... In 2015, digital advertising corresponded to about 50% of total advertising spending and more recent estimates point to a share closer to 65% of total advertising spending. That represents about 0.6% to 1.1% of GDP. ..." from https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2024/oct/rise-digi...
So, nah. It's significant but not "nightmare fuel" even if online advertising entirely went away. (Which nobody is proposing, by the way.)
The real nightmare is hundreds of thousands of people on six figure salaries wasting their lives producing ads everyone hates.