I’ve often argued something simple: today, not being present online is almost equivalent to not existing.
But another reality is becoming increasingly clear.
For several months now, I’ve been dealing with the support center of Google Ads. A concrete, blocking issue with direct impact on my business. Despite multiple exchanges, escalations, and promises… nothing truly gets resolved.
This is not a critique of an individual or a team. It’s a symptom of a system.
We know that companies have historically outsourced functions to improve efficiency and reduce costs. But as Ronald Coase showed, this only works as long as coordination costs remain lower than the expected gains.
In practice, when distance — cultural, operational, and decisional — becomes too great, these costs reappear in another form: misalignment, delays, and an inability to resolve real problems.
And gradually, a mindset emerges:
we delegate problems, assuming someone else will take care of them.
In contrast, Nassim Nicholas Taleb emphasizes in Skin in the Game:
“Never trust anyone who doesn’t have skin in the game.”
In other words, trust and effectiveness depend on shared exposure to the consequences of decisions.
When that link disappears, friction increases. And more importantly, the ability to actually solve problems declines.
Today, a simple question arises:
Who is really making decisions about my campaigns?
Who can I talk to when things don’t work?
And more fundamentally: who have I actually delegated my problems to?
Neither multiplying intermediaries nor adding layers of AI fundamentally solves this issue — at least not yet. In some cases, it even further dilutes responsibility.
What this experience reveals is a broader tension:
between global efficiency and local accountability.
Outsourcing, automating, optimizing… yes.
But at what point does delegation become abdication?
And ultimately: can we still accept a model where, when facing a real problem, it becomes impossible to identify a responsible person?
I know I’m not the only one experiencing this.
Curious to hear your thoughts:
Have you ever felt this loss of control in systems that have become too globalized or too automated?