this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2026
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Online advertisement struggles compared to other forms because it's hard to prove that anyone sees ads. If you pay for 1 million "ad impressions" how do you know if any of those are actual humans? How do you know your ad wasn't buried at the bottom of a page where nobody sees it? Newspapers aren't free and you can see what other readers see by looking at a page sample. You feel more confident that a subscriber actually sees your ad even if only for a moment. Online tracking isn't just to find what you're interested in but also whether you are engaging with ads. Advertiser confidence grows as they feel that Meta, Apple, Google, etc "see all" because they think the tracking stats are more factual.
When you avoid being tracked you actively harm this advertiser confidence. Ad block users are a minority but Google knows they are a threat. Advertisers can haggle by saying, "I'm not paying full price for 1 million ad impressions because I know those aren't all humans." Or even worse, "My target audience uses ad blockers."
So even if someone doesn't do any of these things, but says publicly that they do, that alone is harmful to these companies.