Ad placement business shows just how complicated making a living through online publishing has gotten

Many Internet publishing businesses really do have to pay their own way to stay up.  These would include those owned by public companies, as well of those owned by entrepreneurs depending on them to make a living.

So many of them turn to companies like Outbrain or Taboola for ad placement management. 

The need for enough revenue from each page may account for the plethora of ads and popups on many sites, and other pimpy behaviors like making you keep clicking on to ad-filled pages in suspense to find more ways something in your life is going to break down.

  

An article by Lucia Moses in “Digiday” explains how these ad placement companies work. “In a shift, publishers can no longer counton content-recommendation guarantee checks”. 

  

The article gives a feel for how much marketing activity goes on to make “free content” make money for its providers.  Of course, this is not the same as the topic last Sunday, the purchase of followers which are usually fake.

  

But there’s an ecosystem and its hard to see how it sustains itself. It depends on willingness of users to engage ads and act.  A lot of us don’t, or have blockers, or don’t play ball.  So that’s one more reason why paywalls have become more common. 

One site that I often see on Facebook, ThinkProgress, says it is "blacklisted" by advertisers because it covers "controversial political content" including "white racism."  I don't focus on that particular oppression claim, but I suppose a lot of advertisers would block me for, say, covering North Korea.