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Subprime Attention Crisis (FSG Originals x Logic) Paperback – October 13, 2020

by Tim Hwang (Author)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 192 ratings
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From FSGO x Logic: a revealing examination of digital advertising and the internet's precarious foundation

In Subprime Attention Crisis, Tim Hwang investigates the way big tech financializes attention. In the process, he shows us how digital advertising―the beating heart of the internet―is at risk of collapsing, and that its potential demise bears an uncanny resemblance to the housing crisis of 2008.

From the unreliability of advertising numbers and the unregulated automation of advertising bidding wars, to the simple fact that online ads mostly fail to work, Hwang demonstrates that while consumers’ attention has never been more prized, the true value of that attention itself―much like subprime mortgages―is wildly misrepresented. And if online advertising goes belly-up, the internet―and its free services―will suddenly be accessible only to those who can afford it.

Deeply researched, convincing, and alarming, Subprime Attention Crisis will change the way you look at the internet, and its precarious future.

FSG Originals × Logic dissects the way technology functions in everyday lives. The titans of Silicon Valley, for all their utopian imaginings, never really had our best interests at heart: recent threats to democracy, truth, privacy, and safety, as a result of tech’s reckless pursuit of progress, have shown as much. We present an alternate story, one that delights in capturing technology in all its contradictions and innovation, across borders and socioeconomic divisions, from history through the future, beyond platitudes and PR hype, and past doom and gloom. Our collaboration features four brief but provocative forays into the tech industry’s many worlds, and aspires to incite fresh conversations about technology focused on nuanced and accessible explorations of the emerging tools that reorganize and redefine life today.

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  1. Part of series
    FSG Originals x Logic
  2. Print length
    176 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    FSG
  5. Publication date
    October 13, 2020
  6. Dimensions
    5 x 0.45 x 7.5 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0374538654
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0374538651
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"[A] bracing debut . . . Using apt analogies and accessible terminology, Hwang makes a persuasive case that the internet bubble is bound to burst. This wake-up call rings loud and clear." --Publishers Weekly

"A deep dive into the marketplace that is the internet . . . Thoughtful citizens of the digital world will want to have a look at Hwang’s intriguing exploration." --Kirkus

"In this well-grounded, heretical attack on the fictions that uphold the online advertising ecosystem, Subprime Attention Crisis destroys the illusion that programmatic ads are effective and financially sound. One can only hope that this book will be used to pop the bubble that benefits so few." --danah boyd, author of It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, founder of Data & Society, and Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research

"Digital promised us a new era of ad targeting and accountability, but today's marketer is wrestling with programmatic's murky measurement standards, costly information arbitrage, and outright click fraud. Subprime Attention Crisis examines the commoditization of attention, and draws an important analogy with the opacity and exuberance in real estate that ushered in the 2008-9 financial crisis. Most importantly, Tim Hwang reminds us that a precipitous crash of the digital advertising model would extend far beyond an industry bubble burst to fundamentally threaten the business model of the web we all rely on." --Perry Hewitt, renowned marketing and digital strategy consultant, and advisor to Harvard Business School's Digital Initiative

About the Author

Tim Hwang is a writer and researcher. He is the former director of the Harvard-MIT Ethics and Governance of AI Initiative, and previously served as the global public policy lead for artificial intelligence and machine learning at Google. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Wired, The Atlantic, and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications. He lives in New York City.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ FSG (October 13, 2020)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 176 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0374538654
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0374538651
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.45 x 7.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 192 ratings

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Tim Hwang

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Sidney Elliott
    5.0 out of 5 stars most insightful look into the underpinnings of the internet
    Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    I heard about this book while listening to a podcast about disinformation on podcasts. For a complex and dry subject it is very well written with depth and detail but with a still understandable style. Anyone who expects to be interacting with the internet in the future, particularly if your business depends on this, should read this book.
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  • DaleO
    4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting take on internet advertising
    Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    Basically, it is worse than you think. Advertising has a role to play but it is out of control in numerous ways. If nothing else, there needs to be some sort of regulation on how intrusive and annoying it is. Maybe a rule that only a reasonable portion of screen real estate can be taken up by ads and those ads have to be static.

    The current paradigm is slowly destroying itself, similar to how cable TV did with one third or more of the screen time being taken over by ads. Eventually you alienate your audience and people just give up.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Data Scientist
    3.0 out of 5 stars This slim volume would probably have been better as a journal article
    Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    This book describes what the author sees as the impending crisis in online advertising, which is caused by people reacting less to online ads. This thesis is quite straightforward, so devoting an entire book to it (albeit a short one) is a bit of a waste of time. Other than that, if you're interested in how online advertising works, the book contains a short introduction, as well as a historical overview.
    4 people found this helpful
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  • Andrew Cohen
    5.0 out of 5 stars A fantastic, unsettling story of the ads we see every day
    Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    Hwang lays out an incredibly compelling case for a potential reckoning in the financial underpinning of the internet. Any professional who touches programmatic internet advertising should read, as should those interested in learning from the complex fintech bets that prompted the 2008 financial crisis. A well-articulated, explained, and approachable appreciation for, and warning about, the economics of attention.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Zip
    5.0 out of 5 stars I saw a great online advertisement for this book
    Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    I saw a great online advertisement for this book, so I just had to buy it.

    Seriously though, should be mandatory reading for anyone in tech or advertising.
    5 people found this helpful
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  • Kae
    4.0 out of 5 stars Better as an article than as a book
    Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2024
    This book's central argument—that the programmatic marketing upon which today's internet is built is a flawed but growing bubble destined, someday, to pop—is a fascinating one, but it really should have been an article. That it reached book length is a tribute to annoyingly large margins and ~a lot~ of repetition.
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  • Big Owl
    5.0 out of 5 stars While I haven't Read the Book, I am here to be part of history
    Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 2022
    The current model that is out there for ads/attention does appear to be bursting. The foresight this author had to recognize this is nothing short of a visionary. Sadly this will be far worse than the housing crisis for many, because when a model blows up...it means you structurally have to do something else. The younger generation who lived on making money off of ads will be in for a rude awakening. Will be fun to watch as long as you are not in the industry. Ask ourselves. Do we need more ads? or do we need more quality products?
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  • Paul Isaac
    2.0 out of 5 stars I don't buy it
    Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    The basic premise of this book:

    - digital advertising markets are like financial markets
    - since advertising is way overpriced there will be a bust soon
    - the bust will bring the internet down because that’s how the internet is financed

    Well I don’t buy it.

    For a start, Direct Marketers *do* know the value of what they’re buying. Their advertising sends people to dedicated landing pages where they can be tracked through the site and measured if they convert. Thats getting harder to do, but despite whatever amount of fraud or manipulation may be going on in the ad space, it’s still roughly possible.

    Direct Marketers these days are not just web shop owners but many other kinds of data-driven business. I’ve personally run profitable websites with digital ads as the exclusive source of customers. And don't tell me that Booking.com (one of Google's biggest advertisers) or others like them don’t have a very detailed idea of what their advertising is achieving.

    Then there are indeed Brand Advertisers. Mostly, they don’t have more than a vague idea what they get from their advertising, and nor have they ever. They pay way above the worth because they can’t deduce the proper value. There’s the biggest problem in advertising, but it’s not a new one and if this book had asked the more fundamental question, “does brand advertising even work?”, it could have made more of a contribution.

    Oh, and it’s a mistake to conflate display advertising with search advertising. It’s faulty reasoning to criticise display advertising by showing a problem with search advertising (page 79) and then to rubbish search advertising by picking only search BRAND advertising, a small and special case.

    For sure there are things that need to be fixed in the digital advertising arena. Right now there are major government investigations into Facebook and Google and if there is anything to be done about their monopolies (there is) then the internet will stumble on somehow and businesses will continue to advertise, as they must, in whatever outlets bring them the eyeballs they seek.
    29 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Kean Birch
    5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful
    Reviewed in Canada on December 11, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    Thought this was a great, little book. Actually provides some detail about the mechanisms and operations of online advertising and then the problems with it. Well worth a read for those interested in this topic
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  • K
    1.0 out of 5 stars contenuto banale, qualità di stampa bassa ed errata impaginazione
    Reviewed in Italy on August 27, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    pessimo
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  • Mamun
    5.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking paralelism between subprime financial crisis and online ad industry
    Reviewed in Spain on June 13, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    To me, not an expert in the field, it was really useful to understanding what is going on in the online advertising business. Lot of insights thanks to the paralelism found between subprime financial crisis and online ad industry
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  • Jonathan Briggs
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent and highly readable
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 26, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    Thoroughly enjoyable and fascinating review of the current state of online advertising and the potential dangers lurking in our enthusiasm for a model that is over controlled by a few players such as Google and Facebook, misunderstood by agencies and clients but underpins the whole internet economy.

    Well worth reading.
    Report
  • Thomas Lohr
    5.0 out of 5 stars Von ‚programmatic advertising‘ profitieren weder Publisher, Advertiser noch User
    Reviewed in Germany on December 22, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    Das Buch erklärt leicht und verständlich, weshalb Werbeeinblendungen immer wertloser werden und welche Folgen es haben könnte, wenn der Markt möglicherweise zusammenbricht, sollte nicht bald etwas dagegen unternommen werden.
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