I’ll jump in. I like the name…have similar thoughts and concerns. I think it’s a much bigger question about whether ad based open internet even has a future. I personally think there is a big difference between the privacy fears reported in the media and the level of privacy leakage consumers are actually willing to tolerate though I also think the former drives policy more than the latter.
I worry less about RAMP’s competitive position in open ad tech than open ad tech’s competitive position vis-à-vis GOOG/FB. One could argue that RAMP neutralizes or is the least of the privacy evils since they are matching anonymized IDs, not sharing data or lists across different marketers. In the end I have a hard time seeing anything too extreme as so many publishers depend on ad revenue and doing so would arguably just further entrench FB and GOOG. Some guys like data aggregators might get the hammer.
If you can get past an industry tsunami scenario of a draconian regulatory crack down, I think what matters is as you say -- the *relative* importance of RAMP in the ecosystem. As long as there is an ads based online economy outside of FB/GOOGL, bilateral matches will have to be replaced by a common identity …and this is really a matter of relative efficacy to the walled gardens and, by consequence, a matter of ad tech viability…. and that is a job that tends towards winner take most, to state the obv.
I don’t know if you ever really get comfortable with this risk and maybe it should trade at a SaaS discount as a result. It’s sort of like the CFPB regulatory risk re: WRLD and other installment lenders. The best you can do is size it right. Sheesh, someone just buy this thing please…ADBE? ORCL? Anyone? 🙂