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The open internet is the premium internet

I fielded a question at IAB Tech Lab Summit last week, and the answer bears repeating: When we talk about the premium open internet, we are not talking about something different from the open internet. Quite the opposite. We are making a point and not a subtle one. The open internet is the premium internet. The premium open internet is where we spend most of our time. It’s home to the shows and programming we love to stream. It’s the music and podcasts we take with us through our day. It’s the journalism that keeps us informed. The content is professionally produced and award-winning. It’s the unregretted time in our day. The open internet is the better internet. The fact that it’s ad-supported allows marketers to tap into these rich experiences and fund original, high-quality content. In addition, premium internet is highly targetable and measurable. The systems and technologies that support it are largely interoperable. It’s open in ways that walled gardens are not and can never be. The open internet empowers both consumers and marketers. Contrast that to the low-quality content and ad experience of walled gardens. Social video is a fast dopamine machine of whirring regret. User-generated slop is a low-calorie experience, and it’s being supercharged with generative AI as it unleashes undulating waves of disposable content. This format steals more attention than it earns. I claim no special powers against its allure as I, too, lament the time lost doomscrolling. Its cheapness is not isolated to CPMs but the feeling we experience having lost another hour and gained very little in return. We all know it’s a low-value experience, which is why it’s confounding that so many marketers are over-indexing their investment there. Social media has spawned its own wellness trends — self-help books and resorts will guide you through a now proverbial “digital detox,” and some schools are banning phones to preserve kids’ mental health. There’s a better way to build a brand than throwing ads up between YouTube memes and UGC content. Consumers themselves have woken up to these dynamics. This is precisely why consumers are spending more time on the premium open internet than ever — two out of every three online hours (62%) in 2024, according to The Trade Desk Intelligence’s latest research. Yet marketers still are throwing more than half of their media spend at walled gardens. This mismatch is not new. The walled garden business model is nearly perfect, rivaled only by payday loans that profit from misery. Big Tech players are leveraging cheap goods to expand their reach, minimize choice and grow profits. Walled gardens are perfectly built to capture surplus value — unfortunately, they have no incentive to return it to marketers. But marketers are putting the pieces together. There is a direct correlation between the reascent of marketing mix modeling (MMM) to the enshittification of the walled garden content experience. Marketers are trying to reconcile what we know to be true. The experiences and content that drive results are not getting their fair share of investment, and they are building measurements that better reflect the role non-walled gardens play in outcomes. I recognize that the open internet, despite its advantages, often has a branding problem. We all nod in agreement that the open internet is objectively good. But we struggle to define what it is. That is why we launched the Sellers and Publishers 500+ on The Trade Desk platform. We needed to give the open internet a shape. We needed to make it tangible and viscerally remind marketers they are consumers first. The content experiences they value most as consumers are found on the premium open internet — not in walled gardens. When advertisers buy against this inventory, they can count on a level of quality. While the sellers and publishers can fluctuate over time, we are now sharing representative, country-specific lists of inventory as samples of what you can expect to find on our platform. These 500 or so destinations have become a powerful shorthand, helping marketers understand where the majority of their investment on the open internet is likely to go. We added a “plus” to this marketplace to be clear that it includes tens of thousands of destinations beyond those listed, and to ensure that publishers, both big and small, would be included. As I said at IAB, I often regret the 45 minutes I lose scrolling through social media before bed. But I never regret the time I spend on the podcasts, TV shows and news I choose intentionally. I don’t want marketers to regret their media either. The open internet is the premium internet, and premium reach trumps cheap reach every time.

Illustration by Reagan Hicks / Shutterstock / The Current

I fielded a question at IAB Tech Lab Summit last week, and the answer bears repeating: When we talk about the premium open internet, we are not talking about something different from the open internet. Quite the opposite. We are making a point and not a subtle one. The open internet is the premium internet.

The premium open internet is where we spend most of our time. It’s home to the shows and programming we love to stream. It’s the music and podcasts we take with us through our day. It’s the journalism that keeps us informed. The content is professionally produced and award-winning. It’s the unregretted time in our day. The open internet is the better internet.

The fact that it’s ad-supported allows marketers to tap into these rich experiences and fund original, high-quality content. In addition, premium internet is highly targetable and measurable. The systems and technologies that support it are largely interoperable. It’s open in ways that walled gardens are not and can never be. The open internet empowers both consumers and marketers.

Contrast that to the low-quality content and ad experience of walled gardens. Social video is a fast dopamine machine of whirring regret. User-generated slop is a low-calorie experience, and it’s being supercharged with generative AI as it unleashes undulating waves of disposable content. This format steals more attention than it earns. I claim no special powers against its allure as I, too, lament the time lost doomscrolling. Its cheapness is not isolated to CPMs but the feeling we experience having lost another hour and gained very little in return. We all know it’s a low-value experience, which is why it’s confounding that so many marketers are over-indexing their investment there. Social media has spawned its own wellness trends — self-help books and resorts will guide you through a now proverbial “digital detox,” and some schools are banning phones to preserve kids’ mental health. There’s a better way to build a brand than throwing ads up between YouTube memes and UGC content. Consumers themselves have woken up to these dynamics. This is precisely why consumers are spending more time on the premium open internet than ever — two out of every three online hours (62%) in 2024, according to The Trade Desk Intelligence’s latest research. Yet marketers still are throwing more than half of their media spend at walled gardens. This mismatch is not new.

The walled garden business model is nearly perfect, rivaled only by payday loans that profit from misery. Big Tech players are leveraging cheap goods to expand their reach, minimize choice and grow profits. Walled gardens are perfectly built to capture surplus value — unfortunately, they have no incentive to return it to marketers.

But marketers are putting the pieces together. There is a direct correlation between the reascent of marketing mix modeling (MMM) to the enshittification of the walled garden content experience. Marketers are trying to reconcile what we know to be true. The experiences and content that drive results are not getting their fair share of investment, and they are building measurements that better reflect the role non-walled gardens play in outcomes.

I recognize that the open internet, despite its advantages, often has a branding problem. We all nod in agreement that the open internet is objectively good. But we struggle to define what it is. That is why we launched the Sellers and Publishers 500+ on The Trade Desk platform. We needed to give the open internet a shape. We needed to make it tangible and viscerally remind marketers they are consumers first. The content experiences they value most as consumers are found on the premium open internet — not in walled gardens. When advertisers buy against this inventory, they can count on a level of quality.

While the sellers and publishers can fluctuate over time, we are now sharing representative, country-specific lists of inventory as samples of what you can expect to find on our platform. These 500 or so destinations have become a powerful shorthand, helping marketers understand where the majority of their investment on the open internet is likely to go. We added a “plus” to this marketplace to be clear that it includes tens of thousands of destinations beyond those listed, and to ensure that publishers, both big and small, would be included.

As I said at IAB, I often regret the 45 minutes I lose scrolling through social media before bed. But I never regret the time I spend on the podcasts, TV shows and news I choose intentionally. I don’t want marketers to regret their media either. The open internet is the premium internet, and premium reach trumps cheap reach every time.

The Current is owned and operated by The Trade Desk Inc.