Soylent green is people! And advertising is turning into a tax on the poor.

I was slow to read Scott Galloway’s book, “The Four” about the power of Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Google over our lives.

Wish I’d read it sooner.

A great book with insights that should put you on notice. Both as a marketer and as a citizen. If you are in digital marketing, you should definitely come away fearing for your job.

Galloway, founder and a brand consultant for a firm called L2 and a professor at the NYU Stern School of Business argues that, in the future, Amazon, Facebook and Google will essentially become complete digital marketing firms unto themselves and at the expense of all others. Dominating the point that anyone at a digital marketing firm, that is not one of these firms, will find themselves destroyed as these platforms come to control the means and process for digital marketing.

He’s right. I currently work in voice and I can see the end as voice rises in adoption and the search and commerce services it supports.

Voice is amazingly helpful to users, but it quietly destroys the power of brand loyalty and heavily restrains a buyers’ choice.

Particularly, by destroying the thought space where products competing for consumer purchase live. Choosing from products on a shelf or web pages is replaced by…

“I found X (my company’s private label product) and maybe Y (so I don’t look completely diabolical). Now pick.”

This is true especially if your voice service comes through one of the platforms like Amazon Facebook, Google, and Apple.

Loved the book. Then on my flight to Miami, I watched a lecture he gave at Berkeley. A good summation of his book. During the lecture, one quote caught me,

“Advertising is increasingly becoming a tax on the poor.”

As those with more means can buy experiences that skip them.

He’s right. Blessed with means, like my peers, I can buy Spotify, Hulu, Netflix without ads. I get to pay directly for content. In the evolving model, ads become the tax or attention payment for those who can’t or refuse to pay for content.

I can’t help to think that over time, that will dictate the type of ads used on the ad-supported version. My guess is luxury brands like Mercedes, Apple will skip these versions while marketing with product at a lower budget or demographic niche will.