Google Ad Manager (GAM) just pulled a stunt straight out of Succession: invite the buy side to dinner in New York, whisper about a shiny new way to buy direct through GAM… and oh, by the way, maybe cut DV360 out of the loop. That’s Google essentially saying: “Sure, we’re a family business — but some of the kids aren’t invited to Thanksgiving.”

This isn’t some quirky one-off. It’s the identity crisis of programmatic advertising. DSPs want to be SSPs. SSPs want to be DSPs. And Google? Google wants to be everything while pretending it’s nothing. The DOJ is circling like a shark in a kiddie pool, Amazon’s ad machine is swallowing market share like a black hole, and The Trade Desk is running OpenPath like it’s the rebel alliance blowing up Death Stars. Meanwhile, agencies are left wondering: what the hell is the stack even supposed to look like anymore?

Here’s where it gets ugly: if GAM is really building a direct buying path that makes DV360 optional—then the “rules” of programmatic aren’t rules anymore. They’re just Google’s mood swings dressed up as innovation. The lines blur. The middlemen panic. The money keeps moving, but nobody’s sure who’s holding the controls.

And that’s the point: the real story isn’t the dinner party. It’s the tectonic shift happening under the stack — the regulatory chess, the market cannibalism, and the fight for who actually gets to touch the ad dollar first.

👉 The free version stops here. The paid deep dive is where we map the power grabs, the secret incentives, and why this “DSP vs SSP” thing is less about acronyms and more about who survives the next wave of adtech extinction.

So enjoy your appetizer. The main course — with knives out — is waiting in ADOTAT+.