Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence • Hacker News Board

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

#361

Post by jodrellblank » Wed, May 29, 2019, 4:14 AM UTC

jimktrains2 wrote: post #172

munk-a wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The light side is of so little value that I think we should just throw it out with the bathwater and kill this modern experiment in advertising. Our society is paying huge costs to support this industry in terms of wealth, novel innovations, productivity and sanity. It's terrible.

> The light side is of so little value that I think we should just throw it out with the bathwater and kill this modern experiment in advertising. I don't think that's true at all. Where else would you learn about new services or products? Here are some examples from a 2010 model railroader. https://photos.app.goo.gl/RvRzECgs7MaTo7tP8 Some, especially the Kato model Amtrak one, have some aspects of an aspirational ad…

Why would I want to learn about new services or products?

Or more directly to the point, why would I want to let /you/ decide which services and products I learn about, when, where, and how often? When that is a) more in your interest than mine, and b) inevitably going to turn into a "cover every surface and channel into advertising as you try to shout loudest for my attention in competition with every other vendor of every product and service in the world".

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

#362

Post by mrhappyunhappy » Wed, May 29, 2019, 4:17 AM UTC

zacherates wrote: post #105

mrob wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that, but the very first thing I see is "Father’s Day Gifts Your Dad Will Love". Not "Recommended Gifts for Father's Day", or something similarly objective, just straight up manipulation like all the other adverts.

That's fair, the gift guides don't seem to be particularly useful; however, I've found the buying guides to be really useful, to the extent that I have developed muscle memory for "best X wirecutter" whenever I need to buy a thing I don't have strong opinions about / don't want to do a bunch of research for. For instance "The Best Steak Knife Set" [1], lays out a couple of options and why you might pick them as well…

Wire cutter is manipulation masked in honest reviews. I’ll say the unpopular because people are so hellbent on convincing themselves those reviews give a damn about products with no affiliate links. Oh “but they make recommendations for nonadfiliated products!” Yeah, what percentage of the whole is that? Mmmmmmmhmmmm.

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

#363

Post by Mirioron » Wed, May 29, 2019, 4:21 AM UTC

plankers wrote: post #262

krustyburger wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where would you draw the line? How would producers expect for consumers to find their product? Would consumers be allowed to recommend products to each other? What about design and product packaging? Isn't that essentially a form of advertising?

>Where would you draw the line? At paying platforms to advertise your product. >How would producers expect for consumers to find their product? How about typing "insert product here" into a search engine? >Would consumers be allowed to recommend products to each other? Yes, as long as there is nothing of value changing hands. >What about design and product packaging? Fine, as long it ends at the store shelf/online pr…

>How about typing "insert product here" into a search engine?

But new products don't show up in search engines.

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

#364

Post by analog31 » Wed, May 29, 2019, 4:21 AM UTC

deepakkarki wrote: post #346

Folks in this thread may find this interesting, a 4 part documentary on Edward Bernays and the history of advertising and PR as we know it today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04 From the video description - "The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud's idea…

>>> He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.

I sometimes wonder if the people who are the true targets of advertising, made to want things they don't need, are the people who buy advertising.

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

#365

Post by Mirioron » Wed, May 29, 2019, 4:24 AM UTC

crispinb wrote: post #280

tim333 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Marketers have always been clear that their task is to manufacture desire. Beyond the basics of food, sex, basic security, etc, wants are cultural constructions. Of course you want what you want. You did not make yourself. Your culture has that job. If we had had a century of relentless propaganda installing onto young brains stereotypes of the glories of a clear night sky, or clean healthy rivers (instead of trivial…

Yes, because most of the things we want we want because of biological desire. Clean rivers and clear skies are nice for a brief moment, but they can't compete with the dopamine release of sugar and sex.

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

#366

Post by livueta » Wed, May 29, 2019, 4:46 AM UTC

chc wrote: post #344

livueta wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Wikipedia count as a big content website? n=1 and all that, but I think it's a decent example of how things that are actually useful do just fine[1] without ads. This might sound harsh, but if people are unwilling to pay for something with any currency they don't implicitly count as worthless, maybe it shouldn't exist. The 20xx equivalent of checkout aisle gossip mags going quietly into that good night is a feat…

> This might sound harsh, but if people are unwilling to pay for something with any currency they don't implicitly count as worthless, maybe it shouldn't exist. That's essentially every news source that isn't purely propaganda with billionaires footing the bill for its dissemination. This stance seems pretty closely similar in effect to "The only things that should exist are the interests of the rich." I agree there…

> That's essentially every news source that isn't purely propaganda with billionaires footing the bill for its dissemination.

I guess if you're feeling optimistic an argument could be made that the public broadcasting services of various nations provide a counterexample, although their political independence/status as maybe-not-propoganda is frequently contentious. The emergence of various low-budget OSINT-type outfits like Bellingcat is another indication that the future of investigative reporting doesn't necessarily have to exist within the current framework of media as ad-driven profit engine. Mass connectivity cuts both ways: obtaining and synthesizing relevant info is a lot easier when you can go pull videos of war crimes off of Twitter instead of shipping out an expensive war correspondent. Of course, I don't mean to suggest that this sort of thing will ever be a complete replacement for old-fashioned professional journalism.

> ads have been the main reason information has been available to average people for literally decades now, dating back to print and broadcast media in the 20th century.

One significant difference between then and now is that the cost of distribution of information is approaching zero. In the 20th century, much of what your newspaper's ads were funding was the physical newspaper itself. Broadcasting equipment was prohibitively expensive and you had to go through the FCC (and hope you were one of the ~epsilon sanctioned outlets) to not get shut down. Today, any CDN will happily sell you the bandwidth for millions of page views for a song. This definitely doesn't mean that good journalism is free to produce, but there's a lot of overhead that was being supported by the ad model that doesn't necessarily apply these days.

I agree that some form of revenue replacement is in order, but I hope that these and similar considerations mean that the gap that needs filling is smaller than a naive "well, ads made this much in FY 2018, better spin up micropayments for 100% of that" analysis would suggest.

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

#367

Post by crummy » Wed, May 29, 2019, 4:58 AM UTC

rkagerer wrote: post #320

maerF0x0 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 […

I've never clicked a Google link and bought something. I've never watched a Youtube ad and bought something. I don't think they're making much money off me. They still keep advertising at me.

Have you ever bought a soft drink or purchased food from a fast food restaurant? Why did you choose it?

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

#368

Post by r00fus » Wed, May 29, 2019, 5:00 AM UTC

foldingmoney wrote: post #360

Chathamization wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like a larger and larger percentage of our economy is being taken up by parasitic sectors that have a net negative value for society. Advertising, soda, highly processed food, credit cards, car dealerships, (most) sales people, etc. We'd probably be better of as a society paying these people to do nothing than to do what they do now; we'd be even better off if we paid them to do something actually productive…

It's not like there's some central planning committee that sits down and decides what to pay everyone. Citizens decide where to spend their money -- at least the part that the government doesn't tax and spend for them -- and all of these industries you name exist and pay well because people value them and choose to spend their money on them.

Almost correct. Governments have a strong say in what is incentivized and what is not through taxation and monetary policy.

The people running government are (in most places) elected by the people but that is affected by political manipulation, gerrymandering and politicians often represent the moneyed interests that got them into power.

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

#369

Post by fwn » Wed, May 29, 2019, 5:04 AM UTC

kaybe wrote: post #250

fourthark wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's a war without killing people?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_as_metaphor Even though that was meant tongue in cheek, I fear there will be innumerable deaths before this is over. We can discuss who killed them then. edit: A war-economy-level effort is needed, with the same dedication of all participants, so there is another similar line of though.

Here's another take on the war metaphor in international relations:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securitization_(internationa...

> an extreme version of politicization that enables extraordinary means to be used in the name of security

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

#370

Post by rexpop » Wed, May 29, 2019, 5:06 AM UTC

foldingmoney wrote: post #360

Chathamization wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like a larger and larger percentage of our economy is being taken up by parasitic sectors that have a net negative value for society. Advertising, soda, highly processed food, credit cards, car dealerships, (most) sales people, etc. We'd probably be better of as a society paying these people to do nothing than to do what they do now; we'd be even better off if we paid them to do something actually productive…

It's not like there's some central planning committee that sits down and decides what to pay everyone. Citizens decide where to spend their money -- at least the part that the government doesn't tax and spend for them -- and all of these industries you name exist and pay well because people value them and choose to spend their money on them.

> Citizens decide where to spend their money.

It's almost criminal the way we propagate the narrative that advertising is ineffectual. Of course, if it were, there wouldn't be so much money in it.

So it's very hard for me to take seriously people who believe in consumer choice.