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Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

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Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#141

Post by cm2012 »

FabHK wrote: post #117
cm2012 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest driver of people wanting more is peer actions or non ad entertainment (people with fancy things in movies).

So, here's a paper that explicitly discusses "Keeping up with the Joneses" and Veblen's conspicuous consumption and all, and that claims to show that more advertisement leads to less satisfaction. You can't really just walk in and say "Well, no, guys, listen, let me tell you how it really is" and just dismiss the whole basic notion of the paper without giving sources.

I'm on mobile, but https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/... is a great place to start. It summarizes hundreds of academic sources and includes them in the footnote. Certainly better research than the main study we're discussing, for reasons I've commented on elsewhere in this thread.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#142

Post by bediger4000 »

xfitm3 wrote: post #130

Advertisers are also the "moral police" and strong arm media companies into compounding the short and long term toxic effects of their original message.

That's only true in very extreme cases of "original message", and advertisers only act if there's demonstrable proof that a large percentage of the audience of the toxic message will bail out on their particular product.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#143

Post by FabHK »

The financial industry was huge (it reached 8% of US GDP, and 40% of corporate profits [1]), sucked up many bright students, and made many of its practitioners rich, while arguably not creating much value.

It really seems to me that the same holds, more and more, for advertisement (Google, Facebook). (Well, banks created the ATM, as Volcker famously remarked, and Google a better search engine, so there's that.)

[1] https://www.fa-mag.com/news/how-finance-took-over-the-econom...

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#144

Post by bediger4000 »

oregontechninja wrote: post #29

I view any and all non-obiective advertising as literally evil. There is absolutely no good reason for advertising to exist it's current state. Are there any nations or states which outlaw or heavily regulate advertising? I've heard some governments outlaw advertising to children.

I could not agree more. I have gone out of my way to teach my children that advertising is lies. Literally. That's what I told them, and demonstrated to them.

I also use uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, and NoScript in browsers I control, plus my own DNS-based advertising domain blocklist.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#145

Post by amelius »

I suspect the root of the problem is with the way we view our economy. Instead of measuring happiness we use e.g. GDP as a metric, but I wouldn't be surprised if a high GDP correlates with and causes unhappiness and on top of that it certainly also negatively impacts the environment.

Also, capitalism/the free market seems like a very unfair system (no need to provide examples I hope), and unfairness is also a known cause of unhappiness.

But meanwhile, instead of addressing these problems, our brightest minds are trying to make people click more ads ...

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#146

Post by silversconfused »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #86
enlyth wrote: post #15

To me, it is worrying how much human effort we're investing into advertising as a whole. The top minds of our generations, backed by billions of dollars in funding, are working on increasingly manipulative ways to capture people's attention and use it to generate profit. We're constantly getting better at it; who knows what path this will lead us down. I suspect it might not be the one we had wished for.

Here's the reason they keep doing-- It works. Stop rewarding it and they'll stop. I actually think a large number of societal issues today are stemming from people's inability to think rationally for themselves. Things like fake news, being vulnerable to advertising, taking bad deals like minimum wage etc. If someone were able to think rationally and into the future to figure out, "4 years from now if I choose this […

Preying on the weak is dishonorable.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#147

Post by drdeca »

JohnFen wrote: post #56
lordnacho wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well like it says there's two kinds. One is "Hey, did you know this thing exists? Check it out! Here are all the tests it passed, realistic cost of ownership, and locations where it is in stock". The other is "Look at this woman, isn't she fascinating? People like her will desire you more if you buy the thing she's lying on top of. Actual woman not included." Unfortunately, people have discovered type 2 is effective…

> One is "Hey, did you know this thing exists? Check it out! Here are all the tests it passed, realistic cost of ownership, and locations where it is in stock". I'm pretty sure that I haven't seen that sort of ad since the late '80s.

I have seen an ad that informed me of the existence of a product with a certain property, which I had wished existed but didn’t think did, and this led to a purchase of the product being made.

However, I don’t remember the content of the ad, so I can’t be confident that it didn’t also have an emotional appeal to it.

The company in question later did something else I didn’t like, but the added feature (really, the removal of a ubiquitous mis/anti feature) continues to be something I appreciate.

This was in the last 5 years I am pretty sure.

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#148

Post by hindsightbias »

noir_lord wrote: post #95

One of the nicest things about been a techie is I rarely see/hear adverts. I don’t listen to the radio (programming podcasts and music), watch broadcast tv (streaming and..other sources), ublock origin deals with the web. So I see maybe a one or two per day (billboards near work). I’m reminded how nice that is every time I touch a windows work PC that isn’t mine (I run fedora on a box I built myself), at least everyo…

The perfect VR app would be a visual ad blocker. IEMs have taken care of my ears (at least until iTunes or audible have ads).

Re: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

#149

Post by quickthrower2 »

sesteel wrote: post #66

I view advertising as a form of pollution. In many cases, it erodes the human experience. It is abusive to families with children creating strife where there was none. I spend a lot of time managing expectations and sharing philosophical ideas, like "less is more". I don't mind teaching my children, but I don't like feeling people are trying to take advantage of us all the time. I explain it to them as if it is a gam…

It's good advice, but I find it ironic.

Keep your money. Stick it in an index fund. It'll get invested in Google, Facebook, Apple who make money from ... advertising their own or other people's products.

To really be minimalist I think it's better (if less lucrative on average) to start your own business that takes a small chunk of business away from the giants, that you have ethical control over.

It's getting harder to do that without needing help from Google, Facebook etc. though, and definitely hard to do without advertising. But there's simple advertising "Painter for hire" and then there is the manipulative advertising based on spying on people etc. I think they are two different things.

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