Advertising Is a Cancer on Society • Hacker News Board

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#301

Post by necovek » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 8:53 PM UTC

I prefer to simply say "marketing today is immoral": it is using scientifically proven methods to manipulate us into doing something we would otherwise not be inclined to do.

I don't mind informative advertising: "hey, we are making this thing which can help with this" is ok. But that's a rare breed of ads nowadays. One of the eye-openers for me was when I noticed in my early student (and shaving :)) days how all Nivea shaving products were branded as being for sensitive skin (does your skin turn red if you pull razor over it?): I've simply stopped buying their products. They've scaled back on that, but I didn't "forgive" them their attempt to manipulate me.

As a cancer survivor myself, I don't mind the analogy and term, it just seems to not be explicit enough about what the trouble is with ads today: you have to work backwards to establish parallels from "cancer" to "advertising".

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#302

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 8:54 PM UTC

davidivadavid wrote: post #270

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies would absolutely be able to sell stuff without advertising their products. Self education, word of mouth, and 3rd-party informational sources has been enough for a lot of products. Purely informational advertising - the kind you'll see in an extremely old newspaper - would probably not be considered cancerous by the author of this article. Tune into the TV during a sporting event tonight and you won't see s…

Oh, sales might go down a little. So GM doesn't advertise their latest model and it doesn't sell as much. No worries. It's not like the livelihood of thousands of people is at stake. They'll just find other jobs. Who cares about them?

Replace GM with a factory, and advertising with dumping toxic waste into the local river. Would you still cry about the lost jobs if someone proposed banning dumping toxic waste into rivers?

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#303

Post by dheera » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 8:54 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #294

jjulius wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To your point, I was about to respond to OP as well, and point out that ad-blockers can be installed on Chrome. Then, I remembered that that's not likely to be the case in the near future[1]. https://www.wired.com/story/google-chrome-ad-blockers-extens...

> and point out that ad-blockers can be installed on Chrome On desktop, yes (not for much longer). But not on Android.

FireFox on mobile can run plugins including ad-blockers. The lack of plugins on mobile Chrome is starting to become a deal-breaker for me.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#304

Post by davidivadavid » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 8:55 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #302

davidivadavid wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, sales might go down a little. So GM doesn't advertise their latest model and it doesn't sell as much. No worries. It's not like the livelihood of thousands of people is at stake. They'll just find other jobs. Who cares about them?

Replace GM with a factory, and advertising with dumping toxic waste into the local river. Would you still cry about the lost jobs if someone proposed banning dumping toxic waste into rivers?

So replace something with something that's completely different. Would your opinion be different? I guess so.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#305

Post by stevesearer » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 8:56 PM UTC

My site https://officesnapshots.com doesn't really fit into the box the author writes about here.

Our ads are self-hosted, static images that basically just show pictures of office design products. We also have an area that is literally just a listing of office design products which works kind of like a catalog.

We also sell the ads ourselves and do not participate in ad networks. The only 3rd party scripts we use are a google font and google analytics and the site still works if you block them.

While we are an exception, I'd like to see more people take the approach we do.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#306

Post by gatherhunterer » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 8:57 PM UTC

tantalor wrote: post #298

blodovnik wrote: post #8

This is a dogmatic viewpoint I think often seen in very technical people who are unwilling to see the interconnectedness of how our society works. I bet there's any number of things this person values that simply wouldn't exist without advertising. It's a childish and immature opinion really. Anyone who hates advertising this much should show their commitment by working at an organization that does not advertise. Loa…

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To wh…

The author clearly understands the use of advertising.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#307

Post by jerf » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 8:57 PM UTC

dudul wrote: post #44

t34543 wrote: post #22

If you stop watching ads for awhile and go back to it you’ll see how mind numbing it all really is. I aggressively block ads - no exceptions.

When I moved from Europe to the US I just couldn't believe it. In my home country there is one commercial break during a 2 hour movie. It's a little longer than the breaks in the US, but there is only one. There is also one during a 45minute TV show, and none during a 20minute show. I can't tell you the shock when I started watching American TV. I couldn't believe people were putting up with this.

"I can't tell you the shock when I started watching American TV. I couldn't believe people were putting up with this."

A lot of us aren't. I suspect that causes the TV companies to try to squeeze more out of who is left, which is a slow-motion death spiral.

Even if you were raised with it, as I basically was, it's gotten a lot worse. I sometimes buy shows that air on prime time on the legacy networks (ABC, CBS, etc.), and over the last few years I've been watching their run times creep steadily downwards. My current record so far is 19min of runtime for a 30min show with a popular 2019 release that I don't want to name to derail the conversation, plus of course the networks tend to shave off the front & back 30 seconds nowadays. If somebody told me they found a 16 I wouldn't be that shocked. By contrast, looking at MASH season 1 (1972) on Amazon, the runtimes are all 26 minutes. Syndication usually ran some cut versions for a bit more time, but, still. That's over 25% less time for a "half hour" timeslot.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#308

Post by n0mad01 » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 8:57 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #221

joshgel wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a doctor, I'm all for banning soft drinks, recognizing that it probably will never happen. But, the health externalities associated with drinking such beverages should get priced in and be used to offset eventual health complications. This is not easy because no one likes taxes, but you get what you pay for.

Wow. Banning something unhealthy. That didn’t work out so well for alcohol or drugs. The last thing I want is more government power.

he also said "health ... associated ... should get priced in" - how about 6€ for a can of coke?

people would drink it, but far less.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#309

Post by sjh » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 8:58 PM UTC

kyruzic wrote: post #77

sjh wrote: post #50

I recall watching, some years ago, a documentary about the making of Tetris in which one of the contributors noted how much less colourful public spaces were in the advertising-free Soviet Union compared to the West. Which isn't to say that a better balance couldn't be struck (in the West and elsewhere) now, but 'cancer' is the sort of thing you want to eradicate rather than moderate.

So you think the reason the Soviet union was less colourful was because there wasn't ads? You realize that advertising isn't what created coloured paints or what allows us to plant flowers right?

> So you think the reason the Soviet union was less colourful was because there wasn't ads?

I think it can have been a contributory but not a determinative factor. Mainly, I was just relaying an interesting observation, about the impact of advertising on public spaces, that I hadn't heard elsewhere, or previously, which prompted me to think that eradicating advertising probably isn't an optimum solution.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#310

Post by sgeisler » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 8:59 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #202

dooglius wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is there an externality? It's not like smoking where it affects other people.

I would bet excess sugar (and carbohydrate) consumption is the second largest externality via taxpayer spending on people’s healthcare due to obesity and diabetes. The biggest externality is destabilization of the environment from pollution.

That's only a problem if healthcare is taxpayer-funded. Otherwise it's your and your insurer's problem to price this in somehow, maybe even offering cheaper plans for people living healthy (e.g. meeting weight goals).