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Comment by ghayes | Hacker News Reader

> b) The shift from desktop to mobile should have the effect of reducing clicks.

Can you clarify this statement?

If you're an advertiser, you've already seen this. Mobile viewers click on ads less often than desktop viewers.

So, absent any other variables...if mobile traffic is growing faster than desktop traffic, year over year, click growth would slow.

Unfortunately, this is almost certainly a space where "absent any other variables" is too simplifying an assumption. Some confounding factors to consider:

* Is mobile growth rate so high that it outstrips the reduced expected CTR for desktop users?

* Is mobile use not displacing desktop use, meaning desktop CTR is not falling as fast as anticipated?

* Is mobile use growing in places where there was previously no desktop use? Those users previously had a functional CTR of 0; onboarding them should increase the total clicks even if it reduces the mean CTR.

> Mobile viewers click on ads less often than desktop viewers.

> So, absent any other variables...if mobile traffic is growing faster than desktop traffic, year over year, click growth would slow.

Sure, assuming that actual total traffic growth is constant; if desktop to mobile transition accelerates overall traffic growth, the increase in mobile traffic can be enough to even at a lower click/traffic rate increase total clicks.

Mobile traffic is also exploding, there is a lot more inventory to sell against.

Unless ad blockers are used on a massive scale?

Do they even measure clicks anymore? Isn't view throughs the new metric?

I referenced this higher up, but here it is: we aren't shifting from desktop to mobile, because desktop has leveled off. We're taking time out of literally all the other stuff we do in life, and shifting that to mobile.

Yes, I get that, but the word "shift" in this context isn't all that important. The "desktop/high CTR" leveling off while "mobile/low CTR" grows was the important bit. I'm not the first person to call that a shift.

I thought the premise was that there would be less value to extract, not just a tiny bit more effort per value.

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