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I’m not talking about the federal tax that was scrapped. I’m talking about an invisible tax, paid indirectly to Meta and Google, which accounts for nearly 25% of the price of your everyday products. This tax is rising much faster than inflation: 16% last year.
The Downward Spiral of Social Media Platforms
Cory Doctorow describes the planned deterioration of the digital platforms we know so well as “enshittification”. These platforms start out by serving users, offering free services that people enjoy. Then, they open up to businesses, offering them visibility on favorable terms. Ultimately, the platforms serve their own interests—and those of their billionaire founders—by exploiting a captive audience. Unfortunately, we have now reached this stage.<!--TgQPHd|||[]-
Skyrocketing Digital Advertising Costs
As everyone knows, if you don’t pay anything to use these platforms, it’s because you’re the product. Especially your attention! And Meta, like Google, sells your attention to the highest bidder. And it keeps getting more and more expensive:
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- A 260% increase over the past 9 years (2). Inflation accounts for only 30% of this staggering total (3)!
- And this growth shows no signs of slowing down: an increase of 16% since last year! (4).
- In the food sector, the situation is even worse, with costs higher by 41% compared to the average across all industries (5).
How Digital Platforms Force Users to Buy Their Ads
At the same time, platforms are reducing the reach of businesses’ organic posts. It’s estimated that unless you pay for advertising, Meta will show your posts to fewer than 2% of the followers of your business page. If your business has 1,000 followers, that means only about 15 to 20 people will see your posts appear in their news feed—even though those 15 to 20 people have, by following you, indicated that they’re interested in what your brand has to say.
A Quebec-based marketing agency that I respect recommends spending the equivalent of 25% of sales of your products and services on Meta advertising (Facebook and Instagram) (6). Do you realize that companies are being asked to pour 25% of everything they sell into the pockets of Meta and Google? Because you’ve become hard to reach and hard to engage, overwhelmed by content that’s all vying for your precious attention.
That’s why I’m daring to talk about a tax. It works the opposite way of the digital services tax: rather than these platforms paying even a little for your services (health care, education) through a tax to the government, it’s you who are financing these mega-corporations and their excesses. You do this every day by buying products that have to spend money on advertising just to stay in business.
Punch Spreads Refuses this System
At Punch, we refuse to funnel a 25% advertising tax into our jars. We charge a fair price for our spread because 100% of your money goes toward organic fruit, the expertise of our artisans, and reducing sugar, not into the coffers of Silicon Valley. Our secret formula is word of mouth and quality on the plate.
Sources et références du texte
- Explanations provided here.
- Les données exactes de Coût d’Acquisition Client (CAC) ou Coût par Mille Impressions (CPM) sont présentées here
- Changes in the basket of goods and services from Statistics Canada.
- Selon les marchands de Shopify, tel que présenté here.
- The Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is $49.49, compared to an average of $35 in other sectors.
- Right in the middle of a general recommendation of 15% to 35%.
