Attribution is dying, clicks are dying
Online advertising’s ability to track users and attribute sales to specific clicks is eroding due to privacy laws, browser changes, ad blockers and the shift to apps and walled platforms. Many commenters welcome this as a corrective to an intrusive, surveillance-driven ad ecosystem that has degraded the web with tracking, SEO spam and hostile UX, even if it means more paywalls or subscription models. Others note that marketing budgets and tactics will need to pivot toward less measurable channels like partnerships, influencers and community-building, raising questions about how businesses will reach customers in a post-tracking environment.
Overall sentiment toward “attribution is dying”
- Many are openly happy that tracking-based attribution and adtech are weakening; they see it as a win for privacy and user experience, not a tragedy.
- Common framing: adtech “poisoned the well” with surveillance and hostile UX, so it has little moral right to complain about its own decline.
- Some worry that as ads become less effective, more content will move behind paywalls or into closed platforms, further fragmenting and enclosing the web.
Privacy, tracking, and regulation
- Users credit ad blockers, privacy laws (EU, California, etc.), and Apple’s anti-tracking measures with breaking granular attribution.
- Several note that even paid products now often track and monetize users (cars, OSes, streaming services), so “paying = respected” is not guaranteed.
- There is frustration that public companies’ shareholder pressure pushes them toward ever more data extraction regardless of business model.
Effectiveness and legitimacy of online ads
- One camp: attribution was always pseudoscience that inflates ad prices; clicks are mostly accidents, bots, “lizard people,” or kids.
- Another camp (practitioners) reports statistically sound A/B tests showing that people do click and buy from ads and email, especially on platforms like Meta/Instagram/Facebook.
- Discussion distinguishes “push ads” (intrusive, resented) vs “pull ads” (searching for hotels, restaurants, products), which some find useful.
- Multiple comments describe the ad ecosystem as full of misaligned incentives, fraud, and obsession with “engagement” rather than real sales.
User experience collapse and the rise of blockers & AI
- Many say they avoid clicking because modern pages are packed with ads, malvertising, cookie banners, newsletter popups, autoplay video, paywalls, and SEO padding.
- Heavy SEO has produced low-value, repetitive content (notably recipe sites); some users now prefer books, RSS, or offline archives.
- Some increasingly use AI tools to summarize pages or generate recipes directly, acknowledging this further disincentivizes original publishing and breaks traditional SEO/attribution.
Future of marketing and the web
- Predictions of more spend on influencers, partnerships, embedded/community marketing, and “brand where people actually hang out.”
- Skepticism: many see “community” and “trust” language from marketers as thinly veiled manipulation.
- Several hope the ad-funded web shrinks, replaced by subscriptions, freemium, or hobbyist content—even if that means less, but higher-quality, material.