The prediction
The consensus a few years ago was straightforward: identity deprecation and scale economics would force demand-side platform consolidation, leaving buyers with a handful of major options and much simpler operations.
Instead the average number of platforms a team operates has risen substantially.
Why it reversed
Three forces. New inventory types arrived with their own buying stacks — retail media networks and connected TV chief among them, each with reasons buyers cannot ignore them. Supply-path differentiation gave individual platforms exclusive or preferred access worth maintaining a seat for. And walled gardens got more walled, not less.
Consolidation requires substitutability. None of these are substitutes.
The operational consequence
Every added platform multiplies trafficking work, adds a reporting format, and creates another reconciliation. Teams did not grow to match, so the burden landed on process and QA — the two things that fail invisibly.
It also makes cross-channel frequency management effectively impossible without a layer above the platforms.
What to do instead of waiting
Stop planning for consolidation that is not coming. Build the layer yourself: one brief format, one naming convention, one normalized reporting table, one team accountable across all of it. The platform count becomes an implementation detail rather than a strategic problem.
For advertisers, the read-across is simple. The complexity is real and it is not going away, which is precisely why paying someone to absorb it is rational — and why paying a percentage of your spend for it is not.