I see another explanation. A generous take would be that digital marketing agencies generate mixed results. But many would have far worse things to say about the ROI these agencies produce.

I don’t know anything about the author’s agency, but I can imagine that if I were a small business owner and I allocated budget to them, I’d absolutely let them know how I felt if they failed to produce results. This would not be the case if I were a salaried employee at a larger business responsible for outsourcing digital marketing. It just doesn’t matter to an employee in nearly the same way.

I’ve been a founder and I’ve been in sales most of my career, I’ve sold to enterprises as well as to small business owners. This isn’t to say the author isn’t right. I just disagree with a lot of the comments on here about the inherently misanthropic nature of small business owners.