Here are paragraphs in Subprime Attention Crisis that contains some key statistics—how to make buttloads of money on the internet to sustain a business. The answer is, resoundingly, advertising:
From the biggest technology giants to the smallest startups, advertising remains the critical economic engine underwriting many of the core services that we depend on every day. In 2017, advertising constituted 87 percent of Google’s total revenue and 98 percent of Facebook’s total revenue.
Advertising funds the production of online content. From long-standing publications like The New York Times to more recent outlets like BuzzFeed, advertising remains the core business model for online media despite massive technological changes over the decades.
Digital advertising is highly consolidated. It is dominated by a few major types of advertising and a few major companies. Search advertising, in which ads are placed alongside search engine results, accounts for about 46 percent of overall digital ad revenue. Google, not surprisingly, dominates this segment, accounting for 78 percent of the overall revenue from online searches.
Display advertising—where the ads are delivered through image “banners” or similar media on a website—accounts for another 32 percent of overall digital ad revenue. Facebook is the biggest player in this segment, capturing about 39 percent of ad dollars spent in this format. Advertising delivered through formats other than search and display (such as video, audio, or other media) makes up a far smaller part of the revenue pie.
Google controls around 37.2 percent of the overall U.S. digital ad spend, accounting for around $40 billion. Facebook controls another $21 billion of this market, accounting for another 19.6 percent of the U.S. market.
reference
IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report, Nov. 2018, IAB. Archived here.
Tess Townsend, “Google’s Share of the Search Ad Market Is Expected to Grow,” Recode, March 14, 2017, www.recode.net/2017/3/14/14890122/google-search-ad-market-share-growth.
Google, Facebook Increase Their Grip on Digital Ad Market,” eMarketer, March 14, 2017, www.emarketer.com/Article/Google-Facebook-Increase-Their-Grip-on-Digital-Ad-Market/1015417.
Data Suggests Surprising Shift: Duopoly Not All-Powerful,” eMarketer, March 19, 2018, www.emarketer.com/content/google-and-facebook-s-digital-dominance-fading-as-rivals-share-grows.