Ad tech has developed an immense amount of scar tissue over the years, as cookies, opaque intermediaries and excessive ad requests have piled on to the industry. Like knee surgery to remove built-up damage, we need to shave away unnecessary auction layers and misaligned incentives. This scar tissue has formed as the ecosystem has grown in complexity, yielding both opportunities and inefficiencies.

A single digital ad impression may now pass through multiple auctions and intermediaries before reaching its destination, with each layer adding costs and latency. Programmatic has unlocked scale and automation, but it’s also introduced murky fees and misaligned incentives that drive up costs without necessarily improving outcomes.

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