Leigh Reynolds

[Max Anderson @MaxAnderson]

As someone who has personally spent $500k / mo+ on Google Ads for years, I can tell you with certainty:

This revenue growth in Search is artificial & extremely unhealthy for Google’s business long term

Search volumes are declining as legacy search is being increasingly cannibalized by non-monetized LLM queries

Google’s response?

Manufacture revenue growth via short-sighted, highly extractive, customer-hostile tactics. I.e. charge advertisers more for lower quality clicks, including clicks they do not want and explicitly did not approve Google to charge them for

A few examples to illustrate:

For all of its history until recently, Google operated on a 2nd price auction model

I.e. if you bid $5 CPC and the next highest bidder bids $1 CPC, Google charged you $1.01 for the click (one penny more than the 2nd highest bidder) rather than the $5 you bid

This was a genius move by Google early on as it incentivizes advertisers to input their true maximum willingness to pay rather than trying to play the game of bidding low and constantly adjusting to try to stay just ahead of the next highest bidder while still not paying too much

However recently, Google silently deprecated the 2nd price auction and began charging advertisers as much as their bid and budget caps allow, regardless of what anyone else is bidding

It’s a short-sighted cash grab at the expense of the long term health of the advertiser ecosystem

Making thing worse, Google also recently nerfed keyword targeting precision

Google previously had precise keyword targeting settings that allowed advertisers pick individual search phrases to bid on, defined down to the character w/ exact match or phrase match targeting

This was one of the core features that made search advertising magic, enabling advertisers to run extremely precise campaigns based on exactly what their target customer typed

But now, even if you bid on a specific term or phrase using the strictest exact
-match targeting settings, Google will show your ad across 1000’s of unrelated keywords, labeling them as as “exact match (close variant)”

The definition of “close variant” means whatever they want it to and changes constantly. The result is advertisers get billed for clicks that are totally irrelevant to their business and that their targeting settings explicitly forbid Google from targeting. Google does it anyway and there’s no ability to turn this off

So now exact match is broad match, and broad match is just meaningless spam

This is all very bad for advertisers, but for Google, it allows them to show your ad and bill you for clicks across 1000x more searches that were previously going unmonetized (mainly because they’re garbage queries no one wants)

This is how you grow revenue atop declining search volumes

Lastly, and perhaps most egregiously, Google quietly stopped respecting budget caps by a factor of 2x. For example campaigns we’ve been running for years with $1000 daily budget caps suddenly began spending $2000+ per day

And the extra spend is entirely on the garbage keywords Google arbitrarily throws in as “exact match (close variants)” which have no value to our business, but can’t be turned off

Google offers no refunds nor any recourse for overspend or spend on keywords you explicitly did not target

These are not the actions of a healthy business. These are the actions of company whose core business is in decline but desperately needs to pump quarterly earnings so Wall Street will continue to fund insane capex while hopefully looking through their rapidly deteriorating negative free cash flow

Google operated a benevolent monopoly for the better part of 25 yrs

Meaning the value Google captured from Search was but a small fraction of the value it created, and that spread produced a potential energy that justified expectations of high earnings growth far, far into the future

This is now no longer the case

At the alter of AI capex, Google is sacrificing the golden goose

[Variety @Variety]

Weird Al Yankovic pulled out of a commercial on which he was making a "nice pile of money" after discovering it was for AI.

“I’m not going to mention any names, but they told me it was for a business. It was business software that would increase productivity. I said, ‘Oh well, yeah, sure, I could do that.’ And then a week before we’re supposed to shoot it, I find out this is AI. And I thought, ‘Oh no, I can’t be the poster boy for AI, forget it.’ So I felt bad about kind of pulling out at the last minute. But yeah, I’m not down with that.”

https://t.co/lSfSBMYbb2

[Leigh Reynolds @Lippala]

@DaveMilbo https://t.co/Ql4BPai2Tm

Please please please watch this talk from Tim Minchin about the Left destroy ourselves and why we never fucking affect change and consider it.

[Leigh Reynolds @Lippala]

@qikipedia Hi @crypticcracking might be entertaining if looking for something different.

[David Pocock @DavidPocock]

The PM and other major party politicians are getting their figures from the gas industry rather than the ATO and Treasury 🤯
Whose side are they on?
When you try and interrogate these figures from the gas lobby you get “PAGE NOT FOUND”.
You cannot make this stuff up!
Head to https://t.co/dcjuwV2f9S to get involved.
The only way we win this is if the major parties know they will continue to lose votes at the next election if they don't put Australians first.

[David Pocock @DavidPocock]

Appalled but not surprised to see govt caving to the gas companies.

This just makes me more determined to go harder on our campaign to get a fair return on our gas through a 25% tax on gas export revenue.

Head to https://t.co/dcjuwV2f9S to add your voice.

https://t.co/j91tDxcfCT

[Leigh Reynolds @Lippala]

@JazRignall @PitfallCreator Wizball!

[Evan @EvanWritesOnX]

I am surprised how my tweet below entered the political spheres of Australians.

It means that many Australians actually care about their country. But if you want to do something about it, the first thing to understand is that the answer is not the other party.

The two parties run the visible layer. The operators underneath is the same regardless of who is in office.

Same mining multinationals. Same four banks. Same supermarket duopoly. Same media owners. Same property speculation engine. Same gas exporters paying almost no resource rent. The faces rotate. The arrangement does not.

So voting harder for Labor when the Liberals disappoint you, or harder for the Liberals when Labor disappoints you,

is not resistance. It is the trap.

It is the pressure-release valve doing exactly what it was built to do.

The way to move the operators in Australia, is how you move any operator in any country.

Stop voting tribally.

Strengthen the cross bench. Vote for community independents and minor parties willing to put structural questions on the table that the majors have agreed never to discuss.

A senate full of crossbenchers extracting concessions is worth more than another majority for either side.

Learn who owns what.

Find out who owns your bank, your supermarket, your toll road, your energy retailer, your superannuation, your media.

Most Australians have no idea how much of the country routes back to a small handful of foreign asset managers and resource multinationals.

Once you see it, the arguments between the parties stop looking like a contest and start looking like theatre.

Build parallel structures. Move your money to a credit union or mutual bank. Buy from local cooperatives where you can. Read independent media. Put solar and battery on your own roof so you stop buying back your own gas at a markup from the people who exported it.

Demand specific reforms, not vague good intentions.

Ask every candidate, federal and state, whether they will support a real Petroleum Resource Rent Tax.

Whether they will support a Norway-style sovereign wealth fund built on actual resource royalties.

Whether they will support ending negative gearing and the capital gains discount.

Whether they will support breaking up the media monopolies.

Whether they will support foreign investment screening with teeth.

Whether they will support rebuilding domestic refining capacity and downstream processing of the minerals that's shipped out raw.

Vote on the answers. Politicians respond to specificity.

They absorb and neutralise vagueness.

Tell the truth in your daily conversations.

The deepest defense of the system is the conditioning that tells Australians their own sovereignty over their own resources, their own currency, their own land and their own future is the unrealistic option.

Norway did it. South Korea did it. Singapore did it. Australia chose, repeatedly, through both parties, not to. That is a choice.

Choices can be made differently. Saying so out loud, in private and in public, in conversations with family and friends and colleagues, slowly breaks the spell.

Australia is managed. That is the bad news and that is also the good news.

Anything that can be managed can be unmanaged.

But not by waiting for the next election to deliver a saviour from inside the same recruiting pipeline that produced the current arrangement.

The change starts when enough citizens stop voting for the marketing departments and start asking who actually owns the building.

[David Milner @DaveMilbo]

Here's me. "What the fuck was that?!"
https://t.co/j39G4G3Aok

[Abier @abierkhatib]

Trump’s “victory timeline” claims.

Mar 3: "We won the war."
Mar 7: "We defeated Iran."
Mar 9: "We must attack Iran."
Mar 9: "The war is ending almost completely, and very beautifully."
Mar 11: “You never like to say too ⁠early you won. We won. In ​the first hour it was over.” Mar 12: "We did win, but we haven't won completely yet."
Mar 13: "We won the war."
Mar 14: "Please help us."
Mar 15: "If you don't help us, I will certainly remember it."
Mar 16: "Actually, we don't need any help at all."
Mar 16: "I was just testing to see who's listening to me."
Mar 16: "If NATO doesn't help, they will suffer something very bad."
Mar 17: "We neither need nor want NATO's help."
Mar 17: "I don't need Congressional approval to withdraw from NATO."
Mar 18: "Our allies must cooperate in reopening the Strait of Hormuz."
Mar 19: "US allies need to get a grip - step up and help open the Strait of Hormuz."
Mar 20: "NATO are cowards."
Mar 21: "The Strait of Hormuz must be protected by the countries that use it. We don't use it, we don't need to open it."
Mar 22: "This is the last time. I will give Iran 48 hours. Open the strait"
Mar 22: "Iran is Dead"

Mar 23: "We had very good and productive talks with Iran."
Mar 24: "We’re making progress."
Mar 25: “They gave us a present and the present arrived today. And it was a very big present worth a tremendous amount of money. I’m not going to tell you what that present is, but it was a very significant prize.” Mar 26: "Make a deal, or we’ll just keep blowing them away."
Mar 27: "We don’t have to be there for NATO."
Mar 28: No major quote
Mar 29: Claimed talks were progressing
Mar 30: "Open the Strait of Hormuz immediately, or face devastating consequences."
Mar 31: Claimed a deal was "very close" and that Iran would "do the right thing"
Apr 1: "We’ll see what happens very soon."
Apr 2: Repeated that a deal was likely, while warning of continued strikes if not
Apr 3: "Something big is going to happen."
Apr 4: Said Iran must comply "immediately" or face further consequences.

Apr 5: "Open the fuckin' Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah."
😂

[Leigh Reynolds @Lippala]

@magpiefan Ha! Was thinking that just yesterday as i struggled to find some files in windows.

[Leigh Reynolds @Lippala]

@StarCraft Probably the time when Blizzard supported it and made new content for it... that was good.

[David Shoebridge @DavidShoebridge]

Israel just passed a law mandating death by hanging for Palestinians in rigged military trials voting 62-48 in the Knesset. Netanyahu turned up in person to vote yes. Ben-Gvir wore a metal noose pin on his lapel while the chamber erupted in cheers at the prospect of more killing.

[Leigh Reynolds @Lippala]

@DaveMilbo Of course, sky news on free to air makes it almost impossible.

And also didn't really directly answer your question, sorry!

[Leigh Reynolds @Lippala]

@DaveMilbo I do wonder if there's a space for a
country based version of the Greens - Nats to the Greens' Libs, if you will. The Nats are horrendous to farmers, favouring corporations that destroy water tables. But for a lot of farmers Greens=bleeding treehuggers. Is there space?

[Dr. Simon @goddek]

> 70 years ago, Iran looked just like any Western country.
> Short skirts, rock’n’roll, open universities.
> It’s 1953. Iran elects a secular socialist: Mohammad Mossadegh.
> He nationalizes oil. That pisses off BP.
> Cold War excuse.
> CIA and MI6 stage a coup. Operation Ajax.
> Mossadegh is overthrown.
> They install the Shah, a brutal US-backed dictator.
> Secret police. Torture chambers.
> Iran turns into a puppet state.
> People are that desperate, they turn to Khomeini, an exiled cleric, promising independence and dignity.
> 1979: Islamic Revolution.
> The Shah flees.
> US embassy stormed. Hostage crisis.
> America never forgives.
> Arms Saddam Hussein.
> Iraq invades Iran.
> US provides chemical weapons, satellite intel, logistics.
> 1 million Iranians die.
> Iranian kids sent into minefields with plastic keys around their necks.
> US shoots down Iran Air Flight 655
> 290 civilians dead.
> No apology.
> Fast forward today, Israel attacks Iran.
> The U.S. immediately says “we stand with Israel.”
> They talk about “regime change.”
> They say that Iranians “deserve freedom.”
> No mention of the coup they started.
> No mention of the dictator they installed.
> No mention of the war they fueled.
> No mention of the decades of sanctions and sabotage.
> They created the monster, and now they attacked it because it was still breathing.
> Watch who they try to put on the throne next.
> The son of the Shah is already being presented as the “alternative.”
> The same dynasty.
> The same foreign backing.
>The same promises of stability.
> History will repeats itself.
> And it’s not gonna end well.

[Leigh Reynolds @Lippala]

@crypticcracking @Anthropic @DarioAmodei @DanielaAmodei @jackclarkSF I won't be watching. I hope this isn't the path the channel goes down.

To quote Tim Minchin: "Art without intent is just content".

[Patton Oswalt @pattonoswalt]

Nobody excludes like those who have been excluded

[Leigh Reynolds @Lippala]

@OlgunUluc @ESPNAusNZ Appreciate the updates. It's always hard to find accurate info other than from box scores.

[Mohamad Safa @mhdksafa]

Yesterday Elon joined my call for a global revolution over the Epstein files.

I responded to that with, “You’ll be included in my upcoming report to the Human Rights Council on Epstein files and complicity in Gaza genocide through Starlink and X.”

Elon flagged my account so that all my posts are sent directly to /dev/null.

Can you please do whatever you want to let him see this tweet as I am in X jail. Or better yet, make this tweet one of the most liked tweets ever. Send him the message that he can't manipulate us anymore.