Ad Tech in Freefall: Curation, Chaos, and the DSP Downshift
About the podcast
It’s not the end of programmatic - but we’re definitely in a weird chapter. In this episode, Gareth Glaser joins us to dismantle the myths and mechanics that are quietly shaping the ad tech ecosystem. From throttling and curation fees to the war between DSPs and SSPs, Gareth makes the invisible visible and shows why many industry assumptions need a serious reset. If you’ve ever wondered why good signals get lost or why programmatic performance feels off, this episode breaks it down.
About the guest
Gareth Glaser is the Co-Founder and CEO of Gamera, and the sharp voice behind Gareth Hates Ad Tech. With 14 years in the space, he’s built, sold, and shaped products at nearly every layer of the ecosystem—chairing Prebid, building RTK, and steering product at Magnite. Gareth brings a rare mix of firsthand technical insight, no-nonsense candor, and a mission to fix the open web from the inside out.
About the host
Vijay Kumar is the Founder and CEO of Mile, where he has spent over a decade helping publishers navigate modern Ad Tech. His work spans pricing strategy, yield optimization, and infrastructure decisions, always focused on giving publishers more clarity and control.
As host of Web Without Walls, Vijay brings real-world experience and thoughtful curiosity to every conversation. He asks the questions publishers care about, challenges assumptions when needed, and creates space for honest, practical industry dialogue.
Vijay's Take
- “SSPs become ad networks, DSPs become ad networks, everybody become a bidder on prebid, that's it, there's no more rebroadcasting, you're sending requests to an ad network and then who wins, wins”
- “I'm pretty sure having direct relationship with end users and premium experiences, this has been a common theme across like most people in the industry who are advising the Open Web”
Gareth's Take
- “The DSPs are frogs that are being boiled right now because they are utterly dependent on SSPs for access to inventory and SSPs have realized, wait, we can build the entirety of the DSP except for the actual campaign objects and we can now take control.”
- “Prebid can perform all of the functions of an ad exchange perfectly well. There's nothing it can't do.”
- “There's only one form of data leakage that matters and it should be illegal in every contract. That form of data leakage is modeling which user IDs visit which domains and then buying them elsewhere cheaper. And that form of data leakage is unpreventable.”
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