This is a classic curve for an industry exploiting a temporary monopoly — they were really the only medium for personal advertising (real estate/birth/death/marriage/classified/help wanted/etc) and small-business ads, and cashed in on their captive market.
Satyr Icon — radio was affordable for some small and most medium-sized businesses; TV was for large and some medium-sized businesses. Time is a scarce commodity on broadcast media, so aside from some special cases (little banner ads on cable TV weather tickers, etc) newspaper was really the only game in town for the long tail of personal and most small-business ads.
Agreed on mailbox drops, although newspapers ended up cornering that as well (inserts were less likely to go straight to the trash than loose flyers on the porch).
Thought this would be more interesting as a stacked bar chart. Not sure if Facebook ad revenue is correct, that may be total revenue. I read they hit $6.7B in ad revenue over the last year. Looking for historic data on Google Ad revenue is harder than you’d expect. Looks like a lot of sources conflate their total revenue with revenue specific to ads.
During the second quarter of 2016, Alphabet’s revenue hit $21.5 billion, a 21 percent year-over-year increase. Of that revenue, $19.1 billion came from Google’s advertising business, up from $16 billion a year ago.
I’m thinking about the debate 20 years from now, when we agonize over the declining ad revenue for GoogleTwitFace Amalgamated, and wonder how we’ll get news without social-media companies.
Never Stop Posting 
Alphabet (Google)
Revenue: 74.98 billion USD (2015)
Net income: 16.34 billion USD (2015)
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This is a classic curve for an industry exploiting a temporary monopoly — they were really the only medium for personal advertising (real estate/birth/death/marriage/classified/help wanted/etc) and small-business ads, and cashed in on their captive market.
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David Megginson well there was also radio and tv and mailbox drops, catalogs, etc.
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Google should be on the chart too.
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Satyr Icon — radio was affordable for some small and most medium-sized businesses; TV was for large and some medium-sized businesses. Time is a scarce commodity on broadcast media, so aside from some special cases (little banner ads on cable TV weather tickers, etc) newspaper was really the only game in town for the long tail of personal and most small-business ads.
Agreed on mailbox drops, although newspapers ended up cornering that as well (inserts were less likely to go straight to the trash than loose flyers on the porch).
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Thought this would be more interesting as a stacked bar chart. Not sure if Facebook ad revenue is correct, that may be total revenue. I read they hit $6.7B in ad revenue over the last year. Looking for historic data on Google Ad revenue is harder than you’d expect. Looks like a lot of sources conflate their total revenue with revenue specific to ads.
https://plus.google.com/photos/…
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July, 2016
During the second quarter of 2016, Alphabet’s revenue hit $21.5 billion, a 21 percent year-over-year increase. Of that revenue, $19.1 billion came from Google’s advertising business, up from $16 billion a year ago.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/266249/advertising-revenue-of-google/
April, 2016
The social network on Wednesday said advertising revenue jumped 57% in the first quarter to $5.2 billion from $3.3 billion.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/271258/facebooks-advertising-revenue-worldwide/
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I’m thinking about the debate 20 years from now, when we agonize over the declining ad revenue for GoogleTwitFace Amalgamated, and wonder how we’ll get news without social-media companies.
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