Tuesday, December 30
Tuesday, December 30
When 10x Ad Spend Gets You Nothing
A business owner's Google Ads revenue collapsed 50% over three months. Their response: increase spend to 10x normal levels. The result: nothing. Google offered 5x bonus credits for December—free money to spend more on a system that stopped working. This is happening right before New Year's, during what should be the strongest advertising season. The post sparked 365 comments on Hacker News today—the biggest conversation of the day—with businesses actively sharing alternatives and calculating switching costs. When users move from complaining to migration planning, you're watching something fundamental break. The infrastructure reliability crisis just reached Google's money machine.
When 10x Ad Spend Gets You Nothing
by Rina Takahashi — December 29, 2025
A business owner's Google Ads revenue collapsed 50% over three months. Their response: increase spend to 10x normal levels. The result: nothing. Google offered 5x bonus credits for December—free money to spend more on a system that stopped working. This is happening right before New Year's, during what should be the strongest advertising season. The post sparked 365 comments on Hacker News today—the biggest conversation of the day—with businesses actively sharing alternatives and calculating switching costs. When users move from complaining to migration planning, you're watching something fundamental break. The infrastructure reliability crisis just reached Google's money machine.
The Reality Check
The tech community loves a good hype cycle, but something shifted in 2025. The year started with record funding rounds and ambitious promises. Then came the questions.
What happens when enthusiasm meets spreadsheets:
- Enterprise surveys showing lackluster ROI
- Security gaps nobody wants to discuss
- Infrastructure plays that actually matter
- The eternal "next year will be different" promise
The era of "trust us, the returns will come" is ending. As everyone heads into 2026, the conversation has changed from "what's possible" to "what actually works." The vibe shift is real, and the tech community is processing what comes next.
The tech community loves a good hype cycle, but something shifted in 2025. The year started with record funding rounds and ambitious promises. Then came the questions.
What happens when enthusiasm meets spreadsheets:
- Enterprise surveys showing lackluster ROI
- Security gaps nobody wants to discuss
- Infrastructure plays that actually matter
- The eternal "next year will be different" promise
The era of "trust us, the returns will come" is ending. As everyone heads into 2026, the conversation has changed from "what's possible" to "what actually works." The vibe shift is real, and the tech community is processing what comes next.
TechCrunch captures the mood: early 2025 brought massive funding rounds (OpenAI's $40B, two $2B seed rounds before shipping products), but the second half brought skepticism. Key quote: "If 2025 was the year AI started to grow up and face hard questions, 2026 will be the year it has to answer them."
Survey of 24 enterprise VCs predicts meaningful AI adoption in 2026. The catch? They've been saying that for three years. MIT survey from August found 95% of enterprises not getting meaningful ROI on AI investments. The eternal "next year will be the year" promise continues.
Black Duck research shows 95% of organizations use AI to generate code, but only 24% apply comprehensive security evaluations. Analysts expect 95% of code will be AI-generated by 2030. Supply chain security concerns grow as AI code becomes ubiquitous without corresponding safeguards.
Logic Inc. argues AI coding assistants are forcing developers to adopt practices that were always known but often skipped: comprehensive tests, clear documentation, static typing. "AI agents are tireless and brilliant coders, but they're only as effective as the environment you place them in."
Visa and Mastercard building infrastructure for AI agents to shop autonomously. Visa's commercial launch could hit Q1 2026. December survey shows nearly half of U.S. consumers interested. Mastercard's feature lets you authorize agents to buy when prices drop, even when you're offline.
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