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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

#181

Post by deogeo »

drstewart wrote: post #137
deogeo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many are necessary, or even desirable, and not a net drain on human happiness by optimizing for endless engagement? I don't like the direction in which the ad-supported model is pushing content. Internet pre-advertising had plenty of useful and interesting sites. And Wikipedia is ad-free as well. And without the competition of zero-cost ad-supported commercial sites, other business models would rise to take their…

And what makes you think these other business models will have only net positive contributions on human happiness?

They probably won't - but it dispels the myth that advertising is necessary.

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

#182

Post by ngold »

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.

And then the math geniuses that could be the next Einstein are slaving away in cubicles writing algorithms for the stock market. So much potential lost in the pursuit of increasing someone else's wallet.

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

#183

Post by FabHK »

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.

> Are there any nations or states which outlaw or heavily regulate advertising?

Well, in North Korea the only billboards I saw were of Kim Il-Song and Kim Jong-Il. The two restaurants in the hotel for foreigners on the island in the middle of Pyongyang were imaginatively called "Restaurant 1" and "Restaurant 2". So, not too much marketing there.

I do hope that there is some more sensible middle ground.

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

#184

Post by quickthrower2 »

sesteel wrote: post #173
quickthrower2 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It is only ironic on a macro level. And, I think you extrapolated my thought out too far; I wasn't suggesting to never spend money. My concern is teaching two children how to manage their own consumption and to not spend money frivolously. We aren't at the point of asking 7 year olds to start businesses.

It is only ironic on a macro level.... that's true. At a micro level it's each to their own, look out for number 1.

But you did say "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."

So I took that as caring about the macro level.

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

#185

Post by crispinb »

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…

> I view advertising as a form of pollution

Quite. If (which is now for obvious reasons somewhat unlikely) our global civilisation manque struggles on for another century, it will look back on the overconsumption propaganda industry very much like we now see slavery. Ogilvy, Saatchi et al are the Goebbels' of our age.

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

#186

Post by jacquesm »

dTal wrote: post #170
jacquesm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, halving it would make people 3% more happy. I say halve it 30 times in a row then. These silly stats make no sense at all.

Percentages don't work that way. Don't blame the stats for your own misunderstanding.

Yes, that was sort of the point.

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

#187

Post by tim333 »

undershirt wrote: post #158
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…

A game indeed. Our investments only grow as a direct exploit of the very “pollution” we try to avoid. As debt increases exponentially, so must consumption to cover it. So we shield ourselves and invest—because the game has winners, and it has losers.

People would still spend money and companies still grow even if you banned advertising. I still quite like having housing, good food, travel and so on even if I haven't seen adverts for those recently.

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

#188

Post by FabHK »

brentm wrote: post #14

Though without advertising don't we have less jobs and seamingly greater dissatisfaction with lack of income?

> without advertising don't we have less jobs?

Yes, like we have less jobs without manufacturing chemical weapons.

> without advertising don't we have seamingly greater dissatisfaction with lack of income?

I don't understand the question.

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

#189

Post by JohnFen »

rigorman wrote: post #152
JohnFen wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Light side: Closing the loop between what the customer wants, what their actual problems are, and what engineering and manufacturing can deliver. Marketing seems to have given up on that sort of effort years ago.

>>Light side: Closing the loop between what the customer wants, what their actual problems are, and what engineering and manufacturing can deliver. >Marketing seems to have given up on that sort of effort years ago. Marketing hasn't, but companies' hiring and organizational structure decisions have - especially tech companies. As long as the only marketing personel a company hires are advertising personel, given auth…

> In tech, programmers are the "engineering and manufacturing", but they tend not to want to be told what consumers want by the marketing team

This is true. In fact, I'm currently engaged in a bit of a battle over this very thing at my current employer (I'm a software dev). They're hiring a brand new marketing team, but all they've been hiring are salespeople, and I've been pushing them to be sure to include someone who will do actual market research that we devs can use to inform product design.

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

#190

Post by d1zzy »

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…

If everyone just "keeps their money" the amount of cash changing hands would be much reduced which has a big negative impact on the US market (for better or worse). It's why everyone's monitoring "consumer confidence index".

I moved to the US from a society where for almost any service or product, if there was a realistic option for the consumer to do their own thing and avoid spending money they would most definitely do so (even if that meant doing a worse job, wasting a lot of time on it). In the US I was surprised by the opposite attitude, if one affords to pay some money to avoid putting in the work they'll do it (and many times even when they don't have the cash for it and have to get credit). There are advantages and disadvantages for both approaches I don't think it's a clear win.

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