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For ten years, programmatic ad tech has been selling the same fairy tale:
✔️ More efficiency!
✔️ More transparency!
✔️ Better outcomes!

Which is hilarious—because if any of that were remotely true, we wouldn’t still be having the exact same conversations about:
❌ Fraud (still rampant)
❌ Waste (billions disappearing into the void)
❌ Bloated supply chains (more middlemen than ever)

Let’s be honest: It’s both.

🧐 Andy Dhanik, ever the realist, breaks it down:We’ve made progress—Ads.txt, Sellers.json, even Jounce Media’s crusade against MFA has helped. But let’s not pretend we’ve fixed anything.”

The bad actors? They haven’t disappeared.
They’ve just gotten better at rebranding and hiding in plain sight.

Let’s talk incentives—because that’s what really drives this industry.
💡 Every extra layer in the supply chain = more revenue for someone
💡 More fees, more “solutions,” more unnecessary complexity

And until advertisers stop blindly funding the madness, we’re stuck in an endless loop of:
🔄 Discovery – “Wow, this industry is a mess!”
🔄 Outrage – “Something must be done!”
🔄 Industry panels & reports – “Here’s how we fix it!”
🔄 Absolutely nothing changing – “See you next year at Cannes!”

Maybe.
But only if advertisers:
⚡ Start demanding actual accountability (not just lower CPMs)
⚡ Stop funding fraud with lazy media buys
⚡ Recognize that “innovation” often just means “new ways to siphon ad dollars”

Otherwise?
🚢 The industry will keep sinking—it’ll just look more premium while doing it.

If Andy Dhanik had a million bucks and a flamethrower, would he turn ad tech into a glorious inferno of inefficiency and fraud or try to perform CPR on a patient that’s been flatlining for a decade?

The optimist in him says fix it. The realist in him knows that’s about as likely as Elon Musk logging off Twitter for good.

Because let’s be honest—this industry is a self-perpetuating disaster, a house of mirrors where every so-called solution is just another middleman in disguise. The entire ecosystem thrives on chaos, bloated supply chains, and an unspoken agreement that no one actually wants to know where the money goes, as long as there’s still money.

Andy, to his credit, hasn’t completely given up hope. “There are actually smart, honest people trying to make programmatic better.”

The problem? “They’re outnumbered. Badly. Like ‘storming the Death Star with Nerf guns’ outnumbered.”

And here’s the thing: the solution is not some shiny new acronym.
🚫 It’s not SPO 3.0 (Oh wow, fewer middlemen… just kidding, we added three more!).
🚫 It’s not AI-powered fraud detection (Congrats, you reinvented CAPTCHA).
🚫 It’s not a new, revolutionary, transparent ad-buying model (Translation: The same nonsense, but with a fancier dashboard).

The real fix? Advertisers need to stop blindly shoveling money into this machine and actually demand accountability.

Because until brands wake up and realize that “low CPMs” are just a polite way of saying “your ads are running on AI-generated conspiracy blogs,” ad tech will keep doing what it does best:

💰 Making money off problems it pretends to solve.

So, burn it down or save it?
Let’s just say Andy isn’t out of matches yet. 🔥