The Price of Free Google Report.
Proton analyzed over 54,000 demographic profiles using 2025 ad auction data to estimate what advertisers pay to reach different types of Americans. The range is much wider than you might expect.
The average American generates about $1,605 a year in advertising value. A 35- to 44-year-old man in Bozeman, MT, without children, using a desktop and making high-value corporate searches, generates an estimated $17,929.30. An 18- to 24-year-old father in Fort Smith, AR, using an Android phone and making low-value searches, generates $31.05.
That’s a 577x difference between two people using the same free service.
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Imagine if humanity would spend all this energy and effort into things that would actually benefit humanity world wide. Medicine and medical personnel, food research and production, education, housing, care for the elderly…
Oh man, this world could be so nice…
I’ve said that endless times about the military industrial complex.
Earth’s humanity could be so well cared for without that BS.
We’re still basically monkeys with nukes.
AND impatience
AND impotence
I want to argue against that but that would take too much time.
What’s really crazy is that other than the fact all of this data is collected about you and freely sold among all these companies while it’s nearly impossible to see your own information or try to correct inaccuracies. It’s like a social credit score and online systems are very good at following people between devices.
Imagine the amount of resources humanity could have if we just ended this garbage.
Link is to a shit pdf on a proton drive. It’s a basic description of the Google auction house. The prices they list are largely driven by the bids advertisers place, but that’s not to say Google doesn’t charge a bigger minimum for different demographic segments, they very much do. As does Facebook etc.
For example, one reason that parents are worth less is because of the products they listed. Diapers cost less than business lawyers, so the margins are much slimmer, so advertisers aren’t going to bid as much for an ad placement.
It does miss one thing that is, in my opinion, one of the more revolting aspects of their auction house. As a bidder your dollar is worth less than a big company’s dollar, even as little as one tenth. You could bid a million dollars on an ad space that Apple only bid $100001 on and you’d lose. That gap is dynamically calculated (at least in part) based on comparative search rankings.
Here’s the text without their ad at the end:
The Price of Free Google
What the Ad Industry Pays to Target Americans
A Proton Mail analysis of 54,216 advertiser-defined profiles across the U.S.
The price of your attention
Every user has a price
Every Google search triggers an invisible, real-time auction where advertisers bid for access to your attention. These bids are calculated in milliseconds based on how likely you are to spend. This is how the system decides what you are worth to advertisers.
Proton analyzed 54,216 advertiser-defined profiles across 251 U.S. cities using real ad-market pricing.
● Highest-value user: $17,929/year
● Lowest-value user: $31/yearThat’s a 577x difference. This disparity is not an anomaly — it is the business model.
“Google doesn’t just build a profile from the information you knowingly provide. If you sign up for services, click ads, or ignore others, that creates signals the system can use to infer much more than you realize. It can start with age or interests, then expand into assumptions about income, family status, political leanings, or religion.
When the system isn’t sure, it tests those assumptions by serving different ads, links, or recommendations and watching how you respond. It doesn’t just tracking who you are. It’s constantly learning, so it can price access to you more precisely.”
— Eamonn Maguire, Director of Engineering, Machine Learning & AIWho the system values most — and least These two profiles illustrate how the same system assigns radically different value.
$17,929/year
● 35–44, male
● Bozeman, MT
● Not a parent
● Desktop, heavy userHigh-intent, high-margin services:
● business lawyer
● home renovation
● golf courses$31/year
● 18–24, male
● Fort Smith, AR
● Parent
● Android, casual userPrice-sensitive, lower-margin searches:
● cheap diapers
● family apartments
● toddler clothesSame system. Same country. 577x difference.
Value is not distributed equally
The gap between the average and the median shows that a small number of high-value users disproportionately influence the system.The top 10% of users generate 43% of total value.
● Average value: $1,605/year
● Median value: $760/yearMost users are worth far less than the system’s top performers.
How your value is calculated
Your value is constantly recalculated
Your value is not fixed. It is continuously recalculated based on signals that predict the likelihood of a commercially valuable action.
These signals include:
● What you search
● When you search
● What device you use
● Who you are inferred to beHigh-intent searches — such as legal services, insurance, or financial products — command significantly higher prices than general browsing or informational queries. Your value can change from one moment to the next depending on what you do. In this system, behavior matters more than time spent
The signals behind the price
Your device changes your value
Device usage has a measurable impact on how users are valued.
● Desktop: $2,894/year
● iPhone: $1,338/year
● Android: $585/yearDesktop users are worth nearly 5x more than Android users — even when everything else is the same.
These differences reflect observed behavior — including conversion rates and commercial intent — not the cost of the device itself. Your device becomes a proxy for purchasing behavior.
Parents are systematically valued less
Parental status affects how users are priced within the system.
Non-parents are worth ~17% more on average.
The gap increases during peak earning years:
● 25–34: +24%
● 35–44: +34.5%Having children reduces your perceived commercial value.
Same age — same location — same device. Different value.
Value peaks in midlife
User value is highest between the ages of 25 and 44.
This period corresponds with:
● Major financial decisions
● High-value purchases
● Career-related servicesAs users age, overall value declines — but does not disappear. For users 65+, approximately 75% of value is concentrated in:
● Health
● Real estate
● Financial planningThe system adapts by narrowing focus rather than reducing targeting.
Gender is not a primary driver of value
Gender has a measurable but limited impact on how users are priced within the ad ecosystem.
Average values across genders are broadly similar — with differences in the single digits.
Differences in value are driven primarily by how advertisers price categories of demand — not by gender alone. Higher-value industries — such as finance, legal services, and B2B technology — tend to influence outcomes more strongly than identity itself.
As a result, gender can affect value indirectly, but it is not a consistent or defining factor.
Where you live affects what you’re worth
Local economies shape how much advertisers are willing to pay for access to users.
Location alone can dramatically change what you’re worth.
Highest-value markets include:
- Edmond, OK
- Bozeman, MT
- Naperville, IL
- Santa Fe, NM
- Durham, NC
Lowest-value markets include:
247. Greensboro, NC
248. Gulfport, MS
249. Fort Smith, AR
250. Lowell, MA
251. West Valley City, UTMore usage means more value
Frequency of use acts as a multiplier on user value.
● Heavy users: $3,611/year
● Average users: $843/year
● Casual users: $362/yearHeavy users generate nearly 10x more value than casual users. More usage doesn’t just increase your value — it multiplies it.
This creates strong incentives to maximize engagement.
I wonder what the value of an ad nauseum user is…
How much revenue is a person using an ad-blocker generating?
What defines advertising value to calculate this?
I dont buy anything online, Amazon or otherwise. And I dont engage with any ads unless by mistake. I suppose there is value in market research itself but nobody is making any sales revenue off somebody like me.
but nobody is making any sales revenue off somebody like me.
Everybody who thinks this is definitely having sales revenue made off of them. It needs to be restated forever in discussions like this that the metric for success in online advertising is not largely “oh shit, I could go for one of those right now”.
Those are what stick out in our mind because we remember them. I really did see an ad for Roblox as a kid and immediately go start playing. But sooooo much of advertising is subconscious to a point that we couldn’t possibly measure its true effect except by statistics.
Even beyond what we purchase: I’ve been bombarded with sponsorships for Raycons for years. Even with SponsorBlock on YouTube, sometimes they leak through. I will never buy a Raycon product. But I still occasionally talk about them, inadvertently advertising them, simply because they’re a good punching bag. I watched a whole video reviewing what pieces of shit Raycons are. Fuck it: I’m talking about Raycon right now. And that’s still among the worst-case scenarios for the advertiser. So much of advertising isn’t “I want this product now” or even “this product looks desirable”; it’s headspace.
The idea that advertisers’ psychological manipulation just doesn’t work on certain people needs to die and stay dead. If you saw it, it had an effect on you, and any effect is a better effect than nothing. If you realize an advertisement worked on you, the advertisement has failed part of its job.
People think they’re not targets because they don’t do certain things, but not being part of a group also says a lot about you! User blocking ads? This is information about you. User doesn’t buy online? Also information about you. Everything is information and everything together is a valuable consumer profile
I’m guilty of exactly this. I buy almost nothing online. But I recently got into weight lifting. I wanted good at home adjustable dumbbells. I have a fully stocked gym that I use four times a week, but when I miss a day, I want to at least do something.
Fast forward to me refusing to pay $1,000 for them. I am the target demographic described in the high income no kids male part and low and behold, a beautiful kind Lemming pointed out I can get the exact pair I had been looking for on Facebook marketplace cheaper (and new) on a website I’d never heard of.
Watching reviews, breakdowns, demos, all were imprinting in my mind that I want this particular set. Am I sucker? Maybe. Did I spend $250 on a product I use often and increases my overall quality of life? Definitely.
What about me? On the rare occasion I see an advertisement, I have no idea what I’m even seeing. I saw a commercial a few days ago when my adblock failed.
A woman running through a public park. A man hidden in bushes, in all black watching her with binoculars. More shots of her running. He slips down into the bushes. Screen goes black, and then plain white text. “He’s watching”.
WHAT THE HELL AM I EVEN SUPPOSED TO BUY???
WHAT THE HELL AM I EVEN SUPPOSED TO BUY???
If you’re a woman, sexy jogging gear. If you’re a man, binoculars and tick repellent. If you’re nonbinary, donate to your local parks department to fund sidewalks and bushes.
It’s just that simple.
The binoculars? Or maybe it was an ad for hot singles in your area?
Ed Bernays pioneered this stuff, to the best of my knowledge.
The Century of Self - documentary by Adam Curtis
The Century of Self, by Adam Curtis, discusses the emergence and rise of psychoanalysis as a pivotal means of persuasion for corporations and governments. It covers the work of psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Anna Freud, as well as PR consultant Edward Bernays. The series reveals how those in positions of power have used Freud’s theories to influence and control the public.
nobody is making any sales revenue off somebody like me.
I think this shows the fundamental misunderstanding here. It’s not about money coming out of your bank account. While that might be the goal, at the end of the day they are not chasing you personally, they are chasing statistics. But it’s more than just market statistics. It is about sales revenue, but not about you personally. A few points need to be made here:
#1: GOOGLE is making sales revenue off somebody like you. You are not necessarily the individual target of the direct revenue extraction, the advertisers are. You are the product that Google is selling to advertisers. Are you a shitty, unusable, defective-by-design product? Maybe. Is Google scamming advertisers by selling you to them? Maybe. The point is, that doesn’t matter, except perhaps in a philosophical sense. The advertisers are willingly paying for you. They know the statistics, and they are still willing to pay a lot for you and your group, because statistically, they are convinced it benefits them. Google is getting money from the advertisers to provide whatever access to you and the rest of your group that they can.
#2: Somebody is making sales revenue off you directly. I don’t know who that is, and maybe Google doesn’t either, but to survive in this world as “A 35- to 44-year-old man in Bozeman, MT, without children, using a desktop and making high-value corporate searches” your money has to be going somewhere, and trying to find out and adjust where is an addictive and profitable passtime for Google, advertisers, and all other data brokers involved in this trade. Whether they actually succeed or not, they’re going to have a hell of a time trying, and they’re going to convince other people it’s worthwhile for them to continue to try and they’re going to get paid to do it no matter how fruitless it might seem. Again, it’s not necessarily about you individually, it’s about what they can sell you as.
#3: At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter whether the individual you actually buys anything. Even if you truly are totally DIY, off-grid and self-sufficient and dumping all your money into a pit under your mattress. If you do end up simply being an outlier in your particular demographic group, even if you’re in a large category of outliers in that group, what matters is that the group buys stuff, and you’re part of it, they don’t know if you’re the good part of the group or the bad part of the group, they want the whole group and they’ll let it sort itself out. The other members of that group will more than make up for your lack of revenue stream. It’s possible just one single member of that group will make up for literally every other wasted target in that group. These so-called “whales” are like the gold sifted out of thousands of tons of gravel and dirt. You don’t care about how much gravel and dirt you went through, getting a higher percentage with much less effort out of a much smaller claim doesn’t make you any richer, what matters is how much gold you ended up with. Would they like to narrow that group to remove outliers like you to get an even higher return on investment with even less effort? They would probably consider that an ideal. Does it really matter to their bottom line? Evidently not. This works for them and the people who pay them. It’s why they’re one of the richest companies in the world.
For every sane individual like yourself there’s 10 others that happily say “I kept getting these ads for this thing on Instagram so I decided to buy it to see if it’s any good.”
I lean into it intentionally sometimes. Some of those things sponsor the things I like, and I want those things to be keep happening, so I’ll buy some Pagoda egg rolls that I never would have touched otherwise.
That doesn’t work with the really intrusive ads though.
“i got manipulated” is how I hear it
Not that I think I’m not susceptible. I am. That’s why I hate ads and do everything I can to avoid them.
How do you search for a restaurant or a barber when you’re in a city you’ve never been before? Or how do you rent a car on an airport in another country? You ask for a telephone book?
No OP, but I have never done any of those things in your example.
Bullshit. Are you my 93 year old grandmother?
Like you don’t research a place before you travel, or you just don’t travel? Do you never research a product before purchasing or do you just work with whatever is available in your local store? If you’re buying a car, is it just whatever is on the side of the road or do you search for expert reviews or reliability data?
Oh I was just talking about those particular examples.
Do you never research a product before purchasing or do you just work with whatever is available in your local store? If you’re buying a car, is it just whatever is on the side of the road or do you search for expert reviews or reliability data?
I, for one, actively search out the reviews from entities that go out of their way to not be sponsored by the makers of the products they’re reviewing.
Is phone book an ad? The fact I bought something does not mean I did it because ad convinced me. When one buys a car presume they check what is available on the market and select option based on comparison. Same with travel, you don’t visit place because you saw poster somewhere, you have limit time so you find a list of popular options and pick what to visit. It’s exactly what you called it - research and review. It’s people rating things helping you make your choices, not companies convincing this is what you want to buy by showing you 10 seconds stupid ass video. Or at least I hope. I never understood the concept of ads beyond informing that this business exists. From my perspective could be just brand name and what it sells. No difference to me. I always thought it would be much better to just have site list of businesses with description and reviews
have you ever made a planned purchase? if so, it’s almost imposible you were not influence by marketing even if it only was to narrow your choices to what’s available in your market
marketing is EVERYWHERE… there is no escaping it unfortunately
Stripes, swoosh, “N” on shoes. Alligator or mini polo player on shirt. A horse hood ornament . A particular signature color, stitching. Ultrawealthy can recognize brands without logos.
I guess you can always buy the cheapest off-brand item without previous search…
sure but you cannot do that for every purchase in your life… and even the off-brands advertise and have exclusivity agreements for distribution
How do you search for a restaurant or a barber when you’re in a city you’ve never been before?
Walk up to somebody on the street and say “what’s a good restaurant” or “my hair is out of control, I just got here and I need a haircut, stat”
Or how do you rent a car on an airport in another country?
I walk to the counter that says “rentals”, because airports are used to this
Edit: sorry for answering the question I guess
I typically find those things on the map. Or in specialized apps. Don’t see how it’s ad driven revenue.
Also who is changing barbers every time or moving between cities every few weeks? It’s like once a year thing for most people, isn’t it?
the point was you may be using some advertised service even if you think you don’t.
By chance, maybe, but I specifically don’t click on “Advertised” links in search results. Even if do, does it matter if I’d chose service anyway? Coz all it changes is money moved from one rich ass to another. It doesn’t make me buy what I didn’t plan to buy. Contrary, I might avoid products which are too pushy with ads. In place where I come from people used to say that good things don’t need advertisement. So to me this ad changes nothing. If tomorrow world stop making ads nothing changes to me - I do search, it gives me options, I do research and make a decision
I’m not the person you asked, but depending on the country you live, the good places like restaurants and markets may not be online, so we have to use good old word of mouth to find them. I used to search for all places online, but I had to learn the way of my ancestors to find the good stuff around here, because the places listed online are always the most expensive and presumptuous, while lacking actual quality.
But for things like electronics, cars and anything not available locally, it’s really hard to even imagine viable anternatives to searching in the internet
What defines advertising value to calculate this?
It’s literally defined in the very first line of the artile
I’ve just had an epiphany (or maybe a half-baked showerthought) reading this thread.
All marketers are trying to sell people stuff, but if you think about it, what’s the one thing in common that they’re all trying to sell, and that they’re presumably best at?
Their own services.
So who knows if this “advertising value” has any relationship with reality, or if it’s just inflated bullshit marketers make up to sell themselves.
Also note how all the AI companies are either tech companies funded by advertising themselves, or funded by other tech companies who are funded by advertising. The goal of advertising is to convince you of things. They literally made a product designed to convince you of things, they made it really convincing, and then they convinced everyone AI is some world-changing, job-destroying, civilization-revolutionizing, future-defining hyperscale meta-technology that everybody has to have because it will simultaneously pit the entire world against each other and unify it into a post-scarcity tech utopia. And people are only now starting to do a double-take and actually start to look closer to see that it’s just a cardboard cutout of artificial intelligence distilled from real people, with no actual intelligence behind it and quite possibly no real future.
A desktop user is worth 4.9x more than the same person on Android
This one is really interesting. If using a desktop is more valuable to advertisers, including online stores, why the fuck do all sites and services try to push people into using phones by degrading desktop experience!? That doesn’t make much sense
Phones have wider reach. There’s more people doomscrolling on their phones on Instagram, Facebook and reddit, than there are on desktop. It’s a numbers game.
The desktop is worth more because of the assumption that you’re a corporate buyer at work.
The choice to force you into an app has nothing to do with this at all
The choice to force you into an app has nothing to do with this at all
If desktop users are valued more, it’s because advertisers pay more for them. If a store is willing to pay more to advertise to a desktop user, but also tries to prevent them from using the site, it sounds weird to me.
The desktop is worth more because of the assumption that you’re a corporate buyer at work. Did they state this, or is it a guess? Most corporate desktop users aren’t even the ones making the corporate purchases
Did they state this, or is it a guess? Most corporate desktop users aren’t even the ones making the corporate purchases
Yes they stated this.
If desktop users are valued more, it’s because advertisers pay more for them.
Because the advertisers thing they’re corporate users at work
If a store is willing to pay more to advertise to a desktop user, but also tries to prevent them from using the site
Corporate advertisers are more willing to pay to advertise to corporate buyers. Non-corporate, non-business personal users are not corporate buyers in this context so they benefit more from funneling them into an app for purposes unrelated to advertising to them.
Because there are more Android users
Imagine if that $1600 a person was put to anything even remotely useful.
That’s not counting what they get to hand it over to terrorist, police state, zionazi governments, globally. Global West, Gulf states, Levant.
This article eerily reminds me of myself. I just moved to West Virginia after having a child.
Proton Mail’s Born Private lets parents opt a child into an end-to-end encrypted environment from the start
Strange place for an ad for reserving an email address (for up to 15 years?) but I think I’m good, thanks. Baby formula comes first.
Also their “e2e” is only in the browser, which is only e2e if they don’t get a warrant, at which point it’s trivial for them to get your browser to decrypt everything for them.
I wouldn’t mind Proton if:
- Their fans weren’t so annoying
- They didn’t market themselves as more secure than they are
At least you’re allowed to criticize them here, they haven’t permeated anything to the level of Reddit communities where their official statements are given priority
But then how is your child going to get TigerNinja58@proton.me if you dont reserve their right to the shameful first email address??
Little Elon-𝕏11 is just going to have to find his own way in the world
What does this actually mean? An add pops up and the person says yes I’ll click and buy it?
No. It means an ad pops up and Google knows enough about you individually to say, “that was an extremely high value ad placement. That person was in your target demographic, has a history of similar purchases, and was actively searching for keywords you rank highly. Because of that, we’re going to charge you more for having placed your ad there rather than anyone else’s. Same if they click the ad.”
You just need to see the ad for the ad network to make money off it.
This is just a google adsense sales pitch, lots of those guys will be broke :D
Ok but what actually is the issue? Whenever I ask this people respond things like oh they are making money off you. Again what is the actual issue?
Here is 1. How Meta exposed vulnerable teens to get expolited by advertisers:
Data collection. One of the reasons the Nazis were so successful was because countries like Germany and the Netherlands kept excellent records on people. As soon as they got access to those records, they were easily able to identify people as undesirables and send them off to the camps.
Today, Google collects data like this on you, and then the US government buys it off them, bypassing constitutional privacy protections. This is the one of the ways ICE is targeting people. (Feel free to replace with your local equivalent.)
In order to prevent things like this happening, we should prohibit the collection of the data in the first place.
Targeted ads. I live in a third world country having its economy devastated by targeted foreign online gambling advertisements and I can tell you the consequences are severe and in large scale.
