The game I play the most is Apex Legends which is like a free to play game with loot box as a battle pass and those two things make them a ton of money right. So despite the fact that it's not as necessarily plugged into those ad networks as it could be but it's still like they tell me about oh these new skins are coming out so get ready to buy your endgame gold kind of thing to buy new stuff for it. It feels like the whole industry is increasingly moving toward these games that are like never ending that are huge that require a huge time commitment so you're spending a lot of money I don't know it's very much against the way that I
Paris Marx is joined by Daniel Joseph to discuss why advertising is central not just to the tech economy, but modern capitalism itself, and how the business models of companies are increasing shaped by serving ads and collecting data to inform them.
Daniel Joseph is a Senior Lecturer of Digital Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University. He’s also written for a number of publications, including Briarpatch Magazine, Motherboard, and Real Life Magazine. Follow Daniel on Twitter at @DanjoKaz00ie.
Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.
Also mentioned in this episode:
- Daniel wrote about how advertising and the need to create audiences is much more central to the tech economy than is often discussed.
- Shoshana Wodinsky explained why so many companies are getting into advertising, including hotel chains, retailers, and more.
- Unity faced criticism for merging with IronSource, a known advertising malware distributor.
- After reporting a subscriber decline earlier this year, Netflix launched an ad-supported tier in October.
- Companies like Apple and Uber are expanding their efforts to increase advertising revenue.
- Ramon Lobato wrote Netflix Nations: The Geography of Digital Distribution.
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