Advertising rates have fallen in all media. This has helped along the implosion of the print media, led to near-saturation of infomercials on TV, and produced the ads for flatter stomachs, whiter teeth, and vanishing stretch marks nearly everywhere you click on the Internet. We know where infomercials come from, but who’s behind these banner ads? Who had the brilliant idea, in a recession, to promise ugly duckling-like transformations at the end of a free trial? Slate’s The Big Money decided to find out.
