Online mar­ket­ing today bears a strik­ing resem­blance to the sub-prime mort­gage mar­ket prior to 2008. A quote from Dr. Michael Burry from the book and movie, The Big Short, Inside the Dooms­day Machine, by Michael Lewis — about the sub-prime mort­gage and hous­ing col­lapse of 2008:

“It is ludi­crous to believe that asset bub­bles can only be rec­og­nized in hind­sight,” he wrote. “There are spe­cific iden­ti­fiers that are entirely rec­og­niz­able dur­ing the bubble’s infla­tion. One hall­mark of mania is the rapid rise in the inci­dence and com­plex­ity of fraud.… The FBI reports mort­gage-related fraud is up five­fold since 2000.” Bad behav­ior was no longer on the fringes of an oth­er­wise sound econ­omy; it was its cen­tral fea­ture. “The salient point about the mod­ern vin­tage of hous­ing-related fraud is its inte­gral place within our nation’s insti­tu­tions,” he added.

Here are the 5 stages of a Bub­ble from Investo­pe­dia, March 11, 2021 — Dis­place­ment, Boom, Eupho­ria, Profit Tak­ing, Panic.

Other experts con­firm the same “iden­ti­fiers” in online adver­tis­ing — Adver­tis­ing Age, April 5, 2016; CNBC, June 17, 2016; Medi­a­Post, April 17, 2016; Ad Exchanger, July 15, 2014;