book review | Subprime Attention Crisis (Hwang 2020)

Here’s a new book that I cramed down my stomach over a weekend trip:

An irritatingly catchy cover, right?

content summary

In Subprime Attention Crisis: Advertising and the Time Bomb at the Heart of the Internet, author Tim Hwang sets out to make a provocative argument: The programmatic advertising industry has created a subprime attention crisis, a market bubble that—if popped—will have disastrous results for the publishers of content and users on the Internet. (Bridget Barrett, 2022)

For the first one-thirds of the book, Hwang did a great job in breaking down the landscape of internet advertisement, or especially, the power and pitfall of programmatic advertisement. Introduction, along with Chapter 1 “The Plumbing” come with a remarkably clear and concise anatomy of the market.

The book is organized such that each chapter walks the reader through the logic towards the next argument. Following the first intro and the first chapter, Chapter 2 “Market Convergence” covers a brief history of programmatic industry and explain the core concept of commodification—standardizing ads so that attention is now traded in ad exchanges with as highly fluid commodity.

Chaoter 3 (Opaque) and 4 (Subprime Attention) basically argues how crappy ads are. Opacity creates problem because of algorithmic trading, dark pools, and the new intermediaries. Subprime attention on the other hand, is more of an an ad-fraud problem created by revenue driven ad sellers. The two chapters are the most “juicy part” of the book, where Hwang did a penetrating criticism of the industry. Chapter 5 closes the argument that we are in a subprime attention crisis. Lastly, in Chapter 6 (Exploding the Bubble) gives solutions.

comments

The book is an inspiring and informative smooth read that leaves you wanting more. Yes, it’s a bit irritating that Hwang compromises theoretical rigidness and in-depth reasoning for readability. But come on—you can’t ask for more for such an accessible and succinct read:

Overall, this book serves as a good starter to dive deeper into big, thorny problems, and will surely lead readers deeper down the rabbit hole of programmatic media buying.

There are some problems though.

1. Some reasonings are coarse. I would expect the author to put in more systematic evidence at several points in the book, instead of what is often done—drawing (intermediate) conclusions on merely one case.

2. The logical links between paragraphs are weak. and ideas’ depth is often limited by the length of a single paragraph—but, some of them are good enough that they deserves paragraphs to devote to explaining.

3. The book is somewhat too long:

   

reference

Hwang, Tim. Subprime Attention Crisis. FSG Originals, 2020. Macmillan Publishers. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374538651/subprimeattentioncrisis.

Kannan, Siddharth. “Review - Subprime Attention Crisis (Hwang).” Siddharth Kannan’s Blog, 23 July 2023, https://blog.siddharthkannan.in/2023/07/23/review-subprime-attention-crisis-hwang

Goodreads Reviews on Subprime Attention Crisis. FSG Originals x Logic, 2020. Goodreads. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50403486-subprime-attention-crisis.

Barrett, Bridget. “Review of Subprime Attention Crisis: Advertising and the Time Bomb at the Heart of the Internet by Tim Hwang.” International Journal of Communication, vol. 16, 2022, pp. 292–295.