The “open web” for premium media companies should never have existed
“The open web is shrinking”. “The open web is dying”. “The open web is valuable”. “Save the open web!”
The “open web” as the advertising industry uses it is an ad tech creation. The programmatic open marketplace took the name to clean up its image following all sorts of scandals accumulated over the years and to inherit the positive elements of the broader term, the Open Web.
The traffic that AI-powered search engines no longer send to websites is a separate topic, about the Open Web in its original meaning. This piece is about the advertising marketplace that took its name.
Everybody is taking a stab at its status, but what I hear is a broad perspective that misses the point. The media and advertising industry is made of conflicting business models, so what the open web means, or has meant, is completely different depending on which side you are on.
