(Part I — Free Edition. The rest of this series is for paid subscribers. They’re getting the backroom whispers, the quiet endorsements, and the industry receipts that make this more than a squabble. It’s a reckoning.)

John Nardone isn’t a LinkedIn thought leader or a passing executive with a chip on his shoulder. He’s one of the few people who can legitimately say he helped build this industry. He was there when “digital advertising” meant buying banners on Excite and trying to explain cookies without sounding like a lunatic.

He’s run some of the biggest names in adtech — [x+1], Flashtalking, Mediaocean — each time turning complex software into market-defining success stories. He’s been at the table for every major evolution of this business: targeting, measurement, attribution, optimization, cookieless infrastructure. If adtech were a religion, Nardone helped write the first book of Genesis.

So when a guy like that pens an open letter aimed squarely at Jeff Green, the $40 billion cowboy of The Trade Desk, it isn’t a hot take. It’s a warning shot — and the industry heard it loud and clear.

That’s the line that detonated across the ad world. Nardone’s response to Green’s Open Internet 2025, Part II essay wasn’t just disagreement — it was a public indictment.

Jeff Green’s argument, summarized: The open web is being choked by SSPs and resellers — “duplicators and obfuscators” that siphon value from buyers and confuse the market. His solution? Streamline supply through The Trade Desk’s OpenPath and its new, conveniently self-managed “transparent” stack.

Nardone’s rebuttal: Cut the moral posturing.

He agrees with Green on one thing — yes, fraud and obfuscation exist. But Green’s definition of “clean” conveniently excludes anyone who doesn’t make The Trade Desk richer. As Nardone put it, “Please don’t insult us with false virtue!”

He dismantles the sermon with surgical precision:

This isn’t about ethics. It’s about power.

Let’s not pretend we don’t know what’s happening here. The Trade Desk’s recent product blitz — OpenPath, OpenAds, PubDesk — isn’t altruism. It’s empire-building.

Under the banner of “simplification,” The Trade Desk has been pulling supply away from SSPs and resellers, funneling it through their own infrastructure. The story is that they’re making things “efficient.” The reality? They’re cutting out competitors, redefining what “open” means, and turning publishers into tenants in their own marketplace.

Nardone spotted it immediately. His letter politely exposes the contradiction:“This sure smells to me like advocating for what is good for The Trade Desk, rather than what is good for publishers or the industry.”

That’s not just a jab — it’s a diagnosis. Nardone’s been around long enough to know how consolidation masquerades as progress. When a single company claims moral authority over who’s “legit,” it’s not a movement — it’s a monopoly in beta.

Because he’s not arguing for chaos. He’s arguing for choice.

Publishers are in survival mode. They’ve been hammered by privacy laws, walled gardens, and now AI platforms siphoning both audience and attention. They don’t need another middleman with a halo. They need flexibility — to distribute inventory however they see fit, with partners who add real value.

And here’s the key: Nardone’s argument isn’t hypothetical. It’s backed by three decades of experience building, buying, and selling the very platforms now being squeezed. He knows what “value add” looks like because he’s built it.

He’s also not alone. Industry veterans like Bill Wise (Mediaocean), Scott Young (programmatic consultant), and Marty Kahnle (ad ops executive) have all echoed the same sentiment:

As Wise bluntly put it: “When buyers run the auction, sellers lose leverage and transparency.”

What makes Nardone’s letter so devastating is its simplicity. It’s not emotional. It’s not defensive. It’s logical — and that’s what makes it dangerous to Green’s narrative.

If buyers deserve truth, and publishers deserve freedom, then any company that restricts either — no matter how virtuous its branding — is part of the problem.

Nardone didn’t just defend SSPs; he defended the idea of a truly open web. One where publishers still have agency, where value-add intermediaries still matter, and where “transparency” isn’t just another corporate euphemism for control.

This was just Part I — the polite version.
The next installments, available only to paid ADOTAT+ readers, dive into:

This isn’t just an industry argument; it’s a defining moment in who controls the next decade of digital advertising.

The gloves come off in Part II.

If you think the open web matters, or you just enjoy watching titans trade real punches instead of PR statements, you’ll want to read the rest.

If you’ve read this far and still haven’t subscribed to ADOTAT+, you’re not “supporting the open internet” — you’re freeloading off the last few people who actually care about it.

This isn’t a Substack vanity project. ADOTAT+ exists because the industry you work in is quietly being reprogrammed — by the same platforms that swear they’re “saving” it. Jeff Green’s sermon about the Open Internet 2025 wasn’t a rallying cry for transparency; it was a blueprint for consolidation. And while everyone’s busy nodding along, pretending they understand the hymn sheet, the web is being rebuilt as a subscription-based cathedral — owned, priced, and sanctified by The Trade Desk.

ADOTAT+ does the work no PR team wants you to see:

Supporting ADOTAT+ isn’t just about getting premium insights. It’s about standing on the side of independent reporting — the kind that calls out emperors when they start sewing their own robes. Every subscription keeps one corner of the internet unowned, unfiltered, and unapologetically open.

So yeah — get off your butt and show you actually care.
The open web doesn’t protect itself. But you can help by subscribing to ADOTAT+ — where we’re not selling faith, we’re exposing the sermon.

👉 Join ADOTAT+ — because openness means more when it’s not trademarked.