"You're proposing a tax that is 3.5 times as much as the thing itself costs."
Yes. Yes I am. I did say it would probably cut 90% of the industry.
"That of course would incentivize advertisers to make sure their ad spends are effective which would in turn create more incentive for more ad tracking."
They may sit there and wish for more tracking, sure. They're pretty addicted to that as the only model in the world for making money.
But if you may something much more expensive, and therefore much less profitable, you are saying that you'll get even more of it. That's not how raising prices works.
They're not tracking every last cough we make because they have to to make any money. They track everything because it enables them to make .03% more off of us, and that .03% is profitable. (Number made up, but the evidence strongly suggests we're long past the point of diminishing returns on more tracking, yet they do it anyhow.) Take away the profitability, and they'll stop doing it.
They'll have to. Most of them will be bankrupt and won't be tracking anybody anymore.
Besides, exactly what "more" tracking are we concerned they're going to deploy in a world where they have 90% less money and probably even less profit? They already read all our email, track everywhere we go, track everything we see on the internet, listen to a good chunk of what we say, and use our social connections in every conceivable way to monetize us. What's left?
