Eh, I don't see how candidness and an eagerness to question his own model by Schmidt changes the value proposition at all. Almost all of the time, an ad click is creating value (or a fractional expected value) where there wasn't some before, unless you have a 0% conversion rate.
Meanwhile, a huge chunk of Goldman's activity as I understand it is simply taking the "dumb money" on Wall St. Nibbling the edges, taking pieces of trades by less sophisticated investors. That's not necessarily value creation, and much of the time it can be straight extraction from the rest of the economy.
Not that ads won't get there of course - they're well on their way already with various exchanges. But presently, they have to actually be creating other economic value via conversions in order to exist.
Meanwhile, a huge chunk of Goldman's activity as I understand it is simply taking the "dumb money" on Wall St. Nibbling the edges, taking pieces of trades by less sophisticated investors. That's not necessarily value creation, and much of the time it can be straight extraction from the rest of the economy.
Not that ads won't get there of course - they're well on their way already with various exchanges. But presently, they have to actually be creating other economic value via conversions in order to exist.