Facebook and Google are landlords. They’re in the business of selling attention. When businesses seek to buy clicks, these media giants run algorithms and auctions to determine the highest price for the traffic they can sell. If the traffic is worth more to their advertisers, media sites raise the price on that traffic and absorb all of the extra value. A law firm that makes $100 a click signing up clients for a class action lawsuit is willing to pay up to $99 a click to get that traffic. If they have competition, that’s exactly what they’ll end up paying, with Google keeping all the
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