The Price of Free Google Report.
Proton analyzed over 54,000 demographic profiles using 2025 ad auction data to estimate what advertisers pay to reach different types of Americans. The range is much wider than you might expect.
The average American generates about $1,605 a year in advertising value. A 35- to 44-year-old man in Bozeman, MT, without children, using a desktop and making high-value corporate searches, generates an estimated $17,929.30. An 18- to 24-year-old father in Fort Smith, AR, using an Android phone and making low-value searches, generates $31.05.
That’s a 577x difference between two people using the same free service.
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Im priceless. Or worthless.
Wild that one of the most desirable regions, Durham NC, is within 1 hr of one of the least, Greensboro NC.
That might be what they pay Google to advertise to those groups. But do they manage to get that much profit out of those advertisements from those groups?
I know it is not true to say that “advertising doesn’t work on me” but I wonder if the revenue the advertisers are getting out of that professional man in MT adds up to anywhere close to $17,929/yr worth of sales of their products/services.
Some people might think it’s nonsense to pay more to reach some group than it gives directly, but there might be a degree of diffusion such that it’s not.
Suppose, that computer-savvy woman is the source of advice for her many friends after trying some things out or whatever.
Suppose, that professional man uses occasionally a free tool for their task, that seems to be “first page in Google”, but is in fact the most familiar from 8 things listed on that first page.
Then they use it again or their coworkers or friends know that the tool exists. Then eventually they might buy it.
It’s all probabilities, but those that spread.
Why did I even write this, it’s obvious.
The top 10% of profiles: heavy desktop users — generate 43% of all advertiser value
Helps explain why Microsoft has started injecting ads into the OS so aggressively.
You use an android because you like it
I use an android to drive advertising revenue down
We are not the same
I use an android because Apple has been insufferable about allowing users to run that they want to run and customize their phone how they want to customize their phone.
Google is now showing signs that they want to do the same.
I will move to a linux tablet, watch and a cellular wifi AP if I have to
You should try GrapheneOS. It has no Google crap installed by default, and if you install Play Services for apps that need it, it will be sandboxed so it can’t track you or limit sideloading.
Not far enough. Google if fucking with their appstore, they eventually want it to be a walled garden. If that happens, developers will be hard-pressed to release versions for both Google and aurora (or f-droid or whatever)
I want chat, I want a working camera, a working web browser and to be able to make and take calls. That’s all doable from Linux today, the battery life just really sucks.
GrapheneOS supports F-droid and essentially all APK files. The built in camera and SMS apps work and so do most IM apps and web browsers.
I’m already looking into it lol. From this point on, every device I purchase needs to run Linux.
As far as I can tell, we’re getting close. The kernel needs more handheld power-saving techniques, and honestly, we need some more small-format current technology devices supported. Everyone is locking everything down.
I’d even roll my own SBC project, but the power situation is still too damn sketchy
High-value, low-value
😑
Google is a femcel
This feels like a good post to mention AdNaueam! For anyone who wants an adblocker that helps more than just you! It basically blocks ads but also sends a click request to every ad that should have been loaded. The data being sent with this request contains spoofed garbage data that makes the tracking data sets lose value. It also keeps a funny metric on how much the estimated cost for your clicks is :)
Ad networks have things like DoubleVerify, Human and Integral which can detect this, and it can cause account bans and captchas as well.
Account bans? Which accounts will be banned?
Social media accounts. The big social media platforms look for signs of automation (like auto clicking ads) and may lock your account for “spam” if they detect it.
it doesnt function with other adblockers though :(
It is a ublock fork, the best adblocker on desktop.
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And the assholes only give me back like 2 bucks.
Tax them and turn that into a UBI.
Even if you got the full 1k that would never be enough to survive. Maybe a yearly stimulus check
The average American generates about $1,605 a year in advertising value. A 35- to 44-year-old man in Bozeman, MT, without children, using a desktop and making high-value corporate searches, generates an estimated $17,929.30. An 18- to 24-year-old father in Fort Smith, AR, using an Android phone and making low-value searches, generates $31.05.
Just imagine how much people have to buy through ads to justify this amount of ad spending.
By corporate searches, I think they mean searches for work.
I don’t spend much discretionary income on stuff I search, that amount of advertising/SEO would be almost entirely wasted on my personal life. But my work related searches are very different, products and services I use for work projects add up to much more than I make in a year. I mostly use DDG though, fuck Google.
It’s just Americans. Very vulnerable to suggestions and very wealthy at the same time.
Everyone is susceptible to advertising — the principles rely on fundamental human psychology, just the same as propaganda. However, Americans simultaneously are served more ads in their day-to-day than most other places, and also have a captured education system that is designed to create more unthinking consumers.
Americans are also the primary target it’s all adjusted for. Ads are a social mechanism.
Even ads for non-American audiences sometimes copy ads aimed at Americans in various detail which doesn’t make sense there.
Somewhat similar to perception of fashion differing between living in a big city or in a rural area. In a big city everything is happening around you. In a rural area you learn of things happening, might get interested, might not.
OK, I might be simplifying things.
“Wealthy”
Compared to the rest of the world - yeah. Be that 30 years ago or now. Things that are normal for Americans are something impractically good for the rest of the world.
I mean, there are median and average income maps and such on the web.
But I admit that everything is different, say, in most countries you can do fine without a car. Of what I’ve read and heard about USA, a car seems more important than a place to bunk (I mean, the whole concept of someone with financial problems sleeping in their car seems wild from a country where a car is something less basic than a living place).
Yeah. Americans are very wealthy in general. And very trigger happy for spending with their credit cards
K
Don’t wanna see you slacking doing low-value searches! Brb writing a a script generating some high-level net traffic, so they waste more money on me.
That’s not wasting money, that’s literally generating money for them.
Buying local and obscuring your searches are how you starve the beast.
I mean it kinda depends. If too much company money is spent on fake net traffic companies will see online ads with google arent working properly and be less willing to give them money. But it would have to become a real issue. one single person cant really break the system
Only a third of people online even use an ad blocker.
You’re taking about real effort to be a drop in bucket.
What i said duh
Oh wait, i forgot i was stupid 😭
Well let’s see…
- I’ve used Firefox with uBlock Origins pretty much as soon as uBlock Origins came out. I’m now using Librewolf.
- Im using a YouTube extention that automatically skips sponsers and adreads.
- I don’t use Google for my searches. Haven’t for over 10 years.
- I use Spotify on my PC, with the Bash Spot X patch.
- My OS is also Linux, so no built-in ads.
- On my phone I have AdAway installed.
- I patched my YouTube app with ReVanced Manager, giving me block against ads, sponsers, and adreads.
- I don’t use Spotify on my phone, instead opting to download music I bought from artists (typically Bandcam) or get through Soulseek.
- I use Firefox on my phone too, with uBlock Origins. Did that for nearly as long as my PC.
- I also don’t use Google for my searches there.
I’m very curious about what my value to Google is, considering all that.
It’s crazy that we have to go to that much effort just to have a reasonably pleasant online experience.
Since Feb 2025 Google started using browser fingerprinting to track users. While you don’t see the ads, they’re still building a profile on you.
Pretty sure they started that well before 2025.
They specifically waited until after the inauguration to avoid legal pushback. The Google “Code Yellow” started in 2019 that eventually found this as the final solution.
Basically same,
- Linux and Graphene
- IronFox/Zen Browser with Adnauseam, Sponsorblock, DeArrow and ClearURLs
- Mullvad VPN with AdBlock (off because of Adnauseam).
- GrayJay instead of YouTube.
- SimpMusic + Locally downloaded songs for music.
- Local media server for movies
Only places i have yet to tighten privacy (AFAIK) is email and chats (did make a burner acc on Discord and deleted the old one though). I dont use social media apart from the fediverse. All those accounts are deleted.
Update:
I do use K9 Mail and Thunderbird for email clients and F-droid and Aurora Store as an app store replacement.
Bro that’s like my facebook PF…
I want to set up a Jellyfin local media server. As soon as I get my own apartment I’m going to take a serious crack at hosting my own home server for a lot of my needs.
Why wait? I moves with you!
Your location data. You help with traffic notifications, harveating of networks in relation to your location. Even if you dont use maps.
What is bash x spot?
I got it reversed, it’s spot x bash. But it’s bash script that modifies the spotify client to remove all ads. Doesn’t give you premium features, only removes ads. The script must also be run every time spotify updates.
I only drive to my work and back, no where else do I actually drive because I’m an introvert
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Also, Ironfox and Cromite are awesome too!
Hopefully Ironfox and Librewolf both replace Firefox itself overtime somehow (Since Firefox new leadership has been enshittifying it), maybe Cromite can do same for Chromium too
What do you recommend for searches?
I’ve been using Startpage, it gives me often better results than google does these days. The image search is shit though, have to use something else for that
I have been using DuckDuckGo and SearXNG.
I expect my price is through the floor. Living in Ireland with ad blocker enabled and Google set to disable ad tracking and personalized ad delivery. Even when I use their YouTube app and am compelled to see ads, many of them are bottom of the barrel garbage for pay to win games / casinos and outright scams because Google can’t match a more lucrative campaign against me.
It’s funny because I also listen to podcasts on Spotify and the podcasts are so bereft of matching campaigns the ad break starts and stops almost instantly. The only one that doesn’t is Behind the Bastards which repeatedly inflicts 2 minutes of plugs for other Cool Zone Media podcasts that I’m habituated to auto skip through.
Imagine if humanity would spend all this energy and effort into things that would actually benefit humanity world wide. Medicine and medical personnel, food research and production, education, housing, care for the elderly…
Oh man, this world could be so nice…
Are you saying Google search is not beneficial or Proton’s price gauge report is not beneficial?
I think about this all the time. Tech company spends $19 billion more in ai, etc. Meanwhile, my local school system is firing teachers over a $500,000 shortfall.
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We’re still basically monkeys with nukes.
AND impatience
I want to argue against that but that would take too much time.
AND impotence
I’ve said that endless times about the military industrial complex.
Earth’s humanity could be so well cared for without that BS.
Nah, better using it for guns and nukes.
Gotta nuke something. 🤷
I need to start poisioning my data more and make it stupid expensive to advertise to me.
But google still gets paid. The advertisers will just pump money into Google’s coffers.
I think the amount would go down though if we all poisen our data, making it useless. :thinking_face:
That’s just loss to the end user advertisers. Google still gets paid.
I just got this ad which just felt hilarious as I’ve no connections to Ghana
The sinister part is that this ad might not be for you.
Do you have a friend, family member, or coworker that has shared wifi and space with you that has a connection to Ghana? This is meant to get you taking to them about it
Nope, I have my own network that’s locked down and not shared with anyone else. If I’m not at home, I’m on 5G, never public/work wi-fi
Could be a rough postcode guess, then. With lagtime.
My play store ads are all based on my VPN IP from weeks ago. Sounds like you’re done well foiling the algos.
That you know of!
Yeah!
wow…