The JavaScript Overload; Whatever, AI Will Handle It

Recorded: March 20, 2026, 9 a.m.

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Home Daily News Roundup The JavaScript Overload; Whatever, AI Will Handle It

Daily News Roundup
The JavaScript Overload; Whatever, AI Will Handle It By AdExchanger

Friday, March 20th, 2026 – 12:03 am
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Publishers’ Porky Pages
News publishers overloading their sites with ads, plus the ever-growing technical requirements for running ad auctions, have given rise to a new online phenomenon: the 49MB web page.
To put that bloat into perspective, 49MB was roughly the minimum file size for a clean Windows 95 installation.
Ad tech is behind the bloat. A self-described “product engineer passionate about fixing hostile UI,” Shubham Bose, details how reading four articles on The New York Times site spawned 422 network requests and a two-minute wait for pages to load as “a sprawling, unregulated programmatic ad auction” took place in the browser. Not to mention the weight of the various first- and third-party pixels to facilitate behavioral tracking.
Meanwhile, cookie consent banners and subscription prompts shrink the on-screen real estate for content. As ads load, the window shrinks even further.

“Publishers aren’t evil but they are desperate,” Bose writes. “Caught in this programmatic ad-tech death spiral, they are trading long-term reader retention for short-term CPM pennies.”
Which, yup, fair.
But Bose’s post is not a completely negative screed. He suggests many UI improvements, such as lazy loading ads and delaying popups until the user spends a few moments on the page.
Mastering Marketing TLAs
What does it mean for the ad industry that barely a third of marketing professionals pass a 10-question assessment covering basic marketing concepts? They either don’t know what they’re doing or they struggle to nail down the industry’s excessive amount of TLAs (three-letter acronyms).
The through line from Ipsos’ “Marketing Anchors” survey, which included 1,226 marketers from across the US, Canada, the UK and Australia, is that practitioners don’t necessarily understand modern media and advertising practices.
Respondents had few problems with the first questions on business school terminology, such as the four P’s (product, price, place and promotion, though you all knew that).
But maybe they just don’t know all those TLAs or abbreviations. How many people in digital marketing know what STPs stands for? DBAs? ESOV? ATL advertising? Turns out even industry experts are thrown when asked to recall the jargon they create.
In The Market?
A few weeks ago, it was reported that prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi are marketing to college-aged students.
Aside from the foolhardiness of college-age spenders, many states forbid sports gambling apps from targeting or enrolling people under 21. So there’s a window for “prediction markets” to hook ’em first.
Another demo that prediction market marketers are targeting: news writers.
According to The Verge, Polymarket and Kalshi are expanding beyond partnerships with major platforms like CNN, the AP and Substack. Now they’re offering promotional deals to individual writers, one such being AllYourScreens.com Founder Rick Ellis.
In his weekly newsletter, Too Much TV, Ellis writes that the offer (which he declined) involved using predictive market data to generate story ideas, which he compares to “taking money from a network to write positive things about their programming.”
As Times of Israel reporter Emanuel Fabian pointed out earlier this week, unscrupulous journalists can be bribed to affect an outcome on Polymarket or Kalshi.
It is an uncomfortable fact for the news industry that two powerhouse monetization engines of the web right now – from email newsletters, podcasts, CTV and all influencer channels – are promotional budgets for AI and gambling.
But Wait! There’s More!
Cloudflare’s compliant crawler highlights tension – and opportunity – in the emerging AI content market. [Digiday]
Meta says it won’t discontinue the VR version of Horizon Worlds after all. CTO Andrew Bosworth announced the reversal in an Instagram story Wednesday, claiming Meta made the decision that day after hearing from “heartbroken” VR users – and not to counter widespread mockery of Meta’s outsized bets on VR and the metaverse. [TechCrunch]
Tubi and TikTok are partnering on a “Creatorverse Incubator” project to produce long-form original series for Fox. [The Verge]
Eight state attorneys general are suing to block Nexstar Media’s acquisition of Tegna, a rival TV affiliate network. [Variety]
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ad to content ratio

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AllYourScreens

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AP

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CNN

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consent management

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CTV

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email newsletters

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influencer marketing

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Kalshi

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lazy loading

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news publishers

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Rick Ellis

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Shubham Bose

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Substack

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the new york times

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The JavaScript Overload; Whatever, AI Will Handle It – A Summary

Shubham Bose, a product engineer focused on user interface improvements, details a growing problem within the digital advertising landscape: the 49MB web page. This issue stems from the increasingly complex and unregulated programmatic ad auctions that occur within browsers, fueled by publishers’ attempts to maximize revenue and technology’s demand for extensive network requests and tracking pixels. According to Bose, this “sprawling, unregulated programmatic ad auction” can result in lengthy page load times, as evidenced by a two-minute wait for pages on The New York Times site generated by just four articles. This situation is exacerbated by the shrinking on-screen real estate caused by consent banners and subscription prompts, further intensifying the load times. Bose argues that publishers, driven by short-term CPM gains, are sacrificing long-term reader retention, illustrating a critical dilemma within the industry.

Beyond the technical issues, the article highlights broader industry trends. Ipsos’ “Marketing Anchors” survey revealed a concerning lack of understanding among marketing professionals regarding fundamental marketing concepts, particularly the numerous three-letter acronyms (TLAs) prevalent in digital marketing (STPs, DBAs, ESOV, ATL advertising). This underscores a reliance on jargon and a need for greater clarity. The article then explores the emerging markets for prediction markets, specifically Polymarket and Kalshi, targeting college-aged students and news writers alike.

Notably, Polymarket and Kalshi are offering promotional deals to writers, such as Rick Ellis of AllYourScreens.com, to leverage predictive market data for story generation, raising ethical considerations regarding potential bias. The proliferation of monetization engines like email newsletters, podcasts, CTV, and influencer marketing further compounds this situation. Several recent developments are discussed, including Cloudflare’s compliant crawler highlighting tension in the AI content market, Meta’s reversal in its VR strategy, partnerships between Tubi and TikTok, and a lawsuit filed by several state attorneys general against Nexstar Media’s acquisition of Tegna. These events demonstrate the shifting priorities and strategies within the broader advertising ecosystem, and illustrate the rapid evolution driven by technological and market forces.