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.
It’s just Americans. Very vulnerable to suggestions and very wealthy at the same time.
“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
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.