Who Is the Consumer? A Quiet Betrayal in the Google Ad Tech Ruling

Google just lost a major antitrust case. A federal court concluded that the company maintained unlawful control over key parts of the digital advertising ecosystem. The decision is an overdue check on Big Tech’s power and a signal that the antitrust system is still capable of acting.

But buried in the ruling is a single line that reveals something deeper—and far more unsettling: “The advertiser is the consumer and is focused on reaching users.”

Read that again. In this system, we’re not the consumers. We’re the ones being consumed.

The case was about market dominance. But the way the court defines the market reveals who the system is really built to serve. The advertiser is the one who counts. The buyer. The customer. And the rest of us—those of us living our lives online—are merely the audience to be reached. The resource to be mined. The attention to be bought.

If the advertiser is the consumer, what does that make us?

Not citizens. Not even customers. Just terrain. Raw material. The surface over which this marketplace expands.

Or maybe worse—users. That’s what the court calls us.

A term borrowed from addiction. As if we’re hooked on the very platforms that track, profile, and reshape us.

Not customers with agency, but dependents—kept docile by the drip-feed of content, dopamine, and convenience.

So yes, Google may face consequences. But the ruling doesn’t challenge the logic of the system. It reinforces it. The goal isn’t to protect your privacy or dignity—it’s to ensure that more businesses get fair access to the machinery of influence.

This is what antitrust has become: not a shield for the public, but a tool for optimizing competition among intermediaries. It no longer asks whether the system serves human flourishing. It simply accepts the system as a given—and tries to make it run more smoothly.

You can see the same inversion everywhere.

In healthcare, insurance companies are the true patients.

In education, corporate employers are the real students.

In infrastructure, investor returns matter more than public experience.

Again and again, our systems prioritize the needs of intermediaries over the people they claim to serve.

But nowhere is this inversion more complete than in digital advertising.

This ecosystem wasn’t built to empower us—it was built to study us. Behind every website and app is a silent auction for your mind. Companies bid, in real time, for the right to influence your next thought, your next scroll, your next purchase.

And it’s not just economic. It’s psychological. These platforms don’t just observe your behavior—they shape it. They deploy behavioral science to steer your attention, rewire your habits, mold your identity. “Focused on reaching users” doesn’t mean better service. It means deeper intrusion. Manipulation disguised as relevance.

That’s how subjects become objects.

How citizens become targets.

How human beings become test subjects in someone else’s experiment.

And the strangest twist? We’ve learned to enjoy it.

We celebrate advertisements like pop culture. We rank Super Bowl ads. We share marketing campaigns. We turn the spectacle of persuasion into entertainment.

It’s not enough to be targeted—we’ve learned to applaud the targeting.

And the court? It doesn’t question any of this.

Its only concern is that the system runs efficiently. That more businesses get a shot at your mind. It doesn’t ask whether this machinery should exist—only how to keep it humming without one company owning too much of it.

But absurdity isn’t destiny.

What if we built something else?

What if platforms weren’t designed to extract your attention—but to honor it?

“Everything has either a price or a dignity. Whatever has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; whatever is above all price… has a dignity.” - Immanuel Kant

That’s why we’re building regarder.

Not to serve advertisers, but to serve people. People who want to think deeply. Who want to contribute. Who want to share ideas without being tracked, ranked, and nudged into submission.

In this world, your mind isn’t someone else’s business model.

Your attention belongs to you.

And growth doesn’t come from manipulation. It comes from trust. From ownership. From shared purpose.

Because you are the real consumer. The one reading this. The one who pays attention.

The one who deserves more than being endlessly entertained.

You deserve the simple dignity of your own thoughts.