[bigyabai]

AdSense uses a sealed-bid auction system with arbitrary number of lots that Google controls. It's a FOMO market driven by artificial scarcity, and since Google contractually forbids AdSense-enabled websites from using competing services, it forces ad buyers to go through their closed, controlled system.

[streptomycin]

But in practice, nobody (well, nobody making lots of ad revenue from their website) uses AdSense exclusively. Most don't even use it at all - AdX is better as a header bidding fallback than AdSense. But those who do use AdSense as a fallback are using it in competition with many other ad networks.

[SilverElfin]

They forbid those websites from using competitors? Isn’t that blatantly illegal? I guess it’s not actually illegal until they lose a court case for antitrust.