Ad tech is killing the online experience | Felix Salmon | Media | The Guardian

Final paragraph from a stark advertising reality check

"Online ads have never got less annoying over time, and you can be sure that mobile ads are going to get more annoying as well, once Silicon Valley has worked out how to better identify who you are. The move to greater privacy protections might help slow the pace with which such technologies are adopted. But there’s no realistic hope that websites will actually improve from here. If you want to avoid the dreadful experience of the mobile web, you’ll only have one choice – which is to start reading your articles natively, in the Facebook or Apple News app. But it won’t be Facebook and Apple who killed the news brands. It’ll be ad tech."

Ad tech is killing the online experience | Felix Salmon | Media | The Guardian