Advertising Is a Cancer on Society • Hacker News Board

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#361

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 9:28 PM UTC

officeplant wrote: post #328

dheera wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

IIRC Firefox Mobile is not going to allow extensions anymore within the near future. Although finding the article that brought it up is proving difficult.

Are you thinking about their recent "new Firefox" beta that didn't include extensions? AFAIR this was because they deemed it non-essential for the MVP - but the public response quickly corrected that mistake.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#362

Post by zbyte64 » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 9:28 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.

Can't help but think the only reason for that attitude (government power is bad) is that the government isn't representative of its people.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#363

Post by philwelch » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 9:28 PM UTC

cm2012 wrote: post #252

philwelch wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they’re operating in an adversarial environment where every other business engages in advertising. It’s game theory.

They're operating in an adversarial environment where other businesses exist .

If they merely existed but didn’t engage in advertising, you could advertise and, consequently, outperform them. But they all know this too. This is the game theory I’m alluding to. It’s a Prisoners Dilemma except with added externalities in the cases where anyone advertises at all.

Now, how does the prisoners dilemma get solved? External enforcement. In advertising that might entail laws and regulations to curtail advertising. These laws and regulations may be net positive to the erstwhile advertisers themselves in this scenario. (The equivalent mechanism in the actual prisoners dilemma is that snitches get stitches.)

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#364

Post by GenghisSean » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 9:28 PM UTC

klum wrote: post #184

jkeuhlen wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the other models that exist and are currently working? As someone who is looking to build a free consumer product, I don't know what else exists that can offset my costs other than advertising. I hate paywalls just as much as advertising, so I'm opposed to just charging for access.

If you expect income, you're not really looking to build a free product, are you? Seems to me, a paywall (or similar) is the honest way; those who get value from your product give value back, in the most direct and transparent way possible. (I know I'm trivializing the question; I'm not in your situation and I don't know the perfect model for your product. But I disagree with just lumping together "paywalls" and "adv…

> If you expect income, you're not really looking to build a free product, are you?

You hit it right on the nose. I'd rather pay not to have strings attached than get something free with hidden other costs.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#365

Post by sphuff » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 9:29 PM UTC

anoncake wrote: post #325

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that necessarily so? Maybe some products inherently can't be sustained by word of mouth, and in a world without widespread commercial advertising they wouldn't exist at all.

If a product can't be sustained by word of mouth, it's because it doesn't fill a need that wasn't artificially created by advertising. These products shouldn't exist.

I don't think that's necessarily true. If you and I both enjoy escape rooms, but we aren't friends/don't have a way of contacting each other about it, one of us won't hear about something that would bring us value. Good advertising would take out the roll of the dice that comes with social networks.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#366

Post by beautifulfreak » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 9:29 PM UTC

carapace wrote: post #161

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays > Edward Louis Bernays ... was an Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations". > Of his many books, Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923) and Propaganda (1928) gained special attention as early efforts to define and theorize the field of public relations. Citing works of writers su…

I highly recommend the documentary, Century of the Self, which details how Bernays' theories about advertising were put to use by Nazis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#367

Post by perfunctory » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 9:29 PM UTC

fsloth wrote: post #231

Modern advertising is propaganda and agitation. While commercial entities have advertised their wares for as long as there have been commerce[0], the modern mass hallucination inducing form became the norm only after the world wars. The essence of propaganda is to weave a story and engage the target population in an action that creates commitment to the story and creates secondary effect due to social proof as people…

> Maybe it's because the more you know about how propaganda works the less effective it is

Actually propaganda is so effective exactly because it works even when you know that it's propaganda. People remember the message but not the source of the message.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#368

Post by summerlight » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 9:30 PM UTC

irrational wrote: post #126

readams wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though it was really hard to find anything.

Was it though? I can't recall ever searching for something and not finding what I was looking for.

Yes, it was. I can remember desperate attempts to look for specific documents that I forgot to bookmark on Altavista or Yahoo . It usually ended with going through all the indexed documents and finding nothing relevant. With Google, I usually find such documents within an hour.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#369

Post by kspacewalk2 » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 9:31 PM UTC

Fnoord wrote: post #338

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that necessarily so? Maybe some products inherently can't be sustained by word of mouth, and in a world without widespread commercial advertising they wouldn't exist at all.

We may assume there are fansites for escape rooms available. Such serve as word of mouth advertising, just like reviews do. There is more focus on facts, and the user voluntarily participates (in contrast to all the billboards, online advertising, useless pages in magazines)

A great many potential escape room customers are not looking specifically for escape rooms, they're looking for something fun to do in the area. So, again, no ability to advertise would be a gigantic advantage to established incumbents in the "something fun to do with friends" category of businesses.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#370

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 9:33 PM UTC

cm2012 wrote: post #357

TeMPOraL wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without advertising being a crucial part of that environment, they'd have to focus on making a better and cheaper product than their competition, instead of engaging in a shouting match.

Without advertising, no matter how good your product is, people will never find you. People would just go with whatever product they happened to know (the market incumbent, usually), or just not have access to that category of product.

I agree that competition against incumbents might get more difficult, though if the offering was truly superior, it would become known through word of mouth alone. As for not having access, why would that happen? When people have problems, at least a fraction of them is actively looking for a solution, and those people would introduce everyone else to a new category of products.

What would definitely suffer is products that exist only to fulfill a manufactured demand, but that would be a good thing.