Shinka CEO Kieran Greene: Adtech Needs a Referee, Not Another Middleman
· 4d ago · Originally reported by Beet.TV
In a Beet.TV interview, Shinka founder and CEO Kieran Greene argues that adtech keeps adding new layers that charge publishers, and that AI could spawn yet another generation of intermediaries. He suggests publishers may need to consider taking back control of their own selling infrastructure rather than relying on more players, even neutral-sounding ones.
Why it matters
Every extra layer between publishers and advertisers adds cost and opacity. As AI enters the pipeline, the debate over who controls programmatic infrastructure — and who profits from it — is intensifying.
Explain it like I’m new here
It's like a soccer game where every new referee also wants to play on one team — what the sport really needs is a fair ref, not another player with a whistle.
Terms in this story
Ad tech
Ad tech is the software and infrastructure that decides which ad appears where, buys and sells that ad space, delivers the ad, and measures what happened afterwards.
Publisher
A publisher is any owner of content or a digital property, such as a website, app, streaming service, podcast or screen network, that earns money by selling ad space to advertisers.
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