Advertising Is a Cancer on Society • Hacker News Board

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#531

Post by flukus » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 5:10 AM UTC

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #369

Fnoord wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What city doesn't have brochures of fun things to do, community newspapers where new things like this can be announced or meetup groups for people that like activities like this? There are a lot of ways potential customers can actively find you without manipulating random people who weren't looking.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#532

Post by tsimionescu » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 5:13 AM UTC

aeternus wrote: post #313

logfromblammo wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Coke does not buy the large ad campaign, the available advertising resources can be used by the next-highest bidder, and that bidder might potentially be selling something with a higher social utility function value. Since the ad infrastructure does not get as much money from that transaction, less is then reinvested into ad infrastructure. If McDonald's stopped advertising on billboards, billboard advertising wou…

And how do you measure social utility? Price is currently the best measure of 'social utility' that we have. People choose to spend their hard-earned dollars on the products that provide the most utility. Companies spend their hard-earned dollars on the vehicles that allow them to sell the most product.

But advertising is explicitly designed to skew that measure - the purpose of essentially all advertising, and certainly all of Coke/Pepsi's advertising, is to convince people that they need something that they don't need; and to make them appeal to their feelings instead of their rationality when doing purchasing decisions (e.g. by inspiring brand loyalty).

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#533

Post by spaced-out » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 5:48 AM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #445

cameronbrown wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've actually thought about that model a lot recently. If Google does this then it's one more step towards their goal of getting somebody what they want. Ads usually only show when you're typing a phrase which correlates with a product. Whenever you type "vacuum cleaners", that's you signalling you're likely searching for a commercial product. If not, ignore the ad. But let's be honest, search ads are not the problem…

Yeah, I've been saying for years that someone should make a search engine for the ad-free segment of the internet :-) Then we could use it most of the time, and fall back to Google explicitly when doing queries with commercial intent.

How much per month would you pay for such a service?

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#534

Post by smt88 » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 6:01 AM UTC

dymk wrote: post #110

smt88 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What valuable things wouldn't exist without advertising?

Name a consumer good that you've bought, that was never advertised

The things I buy may be advertised, but I buy nothing based on ads. I see almost no ads because I pay to remove them from all services that allow me to, and the rest I block.

I search for a product based on its category, read reviews, and find unpaid recommendations from things like Consumer Reports or Wirecutter.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#535

Post by joantorres » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 6:21 AM UTC

The real cancer on society are religions. Not only they are totally useless, but they have been obstructing critical thinking and the progress of sciencific development for thousands of years.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#536

Post by dragonsngoblins » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 6:27 AM UTC

Zeklandia wrote: post #444

therealdrag0 wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we live in a culture that can afford entertainment luxury, if people don't find this gals business, they will spend that time on Netflix or at a bar instead.. The zero-sum game you propose is not really close to what would happen without advertising imo.

We only tell our selves we can afford. The truth is we are constantly putting off work that needs to be done as if some future generation will fix all these problems. There are tens of millions of Americans living in homelessness, shanty towns, and trailer parks. We need to build housing (apartments, homes) for them. No individual person can do that. We have to organize ourselves to tackle these kinds of problems coo…

Even with absolutely 0 advertising I probably wouldn't be working to build apartments for the homeless. Sure maybe I'm not seeing some movie, or buying some piece of chocolate I heard discovered through advertising but in that case I'm going to be spending my time watching/reading/playing/indulging in various other hobbies and vices and any money I would otherwise have spent I'd be saving.

Absolutely no benefit to future generations or my fellow man, and I'd assume the case to be true of most people. It isn't as if advertising has made me more callous or lazy.

Unless your point is that companies could be doing those things instead of spending ad dollars, but that is a ridiculous proposition because they'd be using it to make more capital in some other way

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#537

Post by Fnoord » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 7:05 AM UTC

randcraw wrote: post #515

anoncake wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're describing a commodity. So what's an example of a popular product that no longer differentiates on features/quality yet exists solely due to advertising? ... Actually I'm having a hard time thinking of mature products that DON'T meet that description. Soft drinks, insurance companies, investment advisors, pretty much all prepared foods, all over-the-counter drugs, shampoo, deodorant, desktop computers, etc, et…

> Soft drinks, insurance companies, investment advisors, pretty much all prepared foods, all over-the-counter drugs, shampoo, deodorant, desktop computers

Soft drinks / prepared food / shampoo / deodorant I never buy due to ads. Heck, I never buy soft drinks. I drink a beer once a week, usually a special one. I find it by looking around at the liquor store dept. of the grocery store. I have zero brand loyalty in this regard (the amount of choice is a fata morgana anyway). I have a sensitive skin as well, so I can't stand a lot of these deodorant / shampoo.

I go to the grocery store to buy my food. The only time I may differentiate is when something is on discount. Which, true, is advertising, but its a clear deal. I don't follow the "saving" deals where you need stamps or whatever because it creates artificial brand loyalty / expenses.

OTC drugs I only buy when I need them. I'd buy the cheapest of active substance. I don't give a rat about which brand. If its insured, I get the cheapest one automatically cause otherwise I can't get it back.

Insurance, water, electricity, I go with the cheapest I can find. No commercial is going to tell me about which one's the cheapest. Comparison websites will, and there are good ones. My favourite one is the national equivalent to US Consumer Reports. To which I'm also an active subscriber.

Quite frankly, all I get from your post is that advertising is pushing crap we don't need. Cause we don't need to buy the branded versions.

If you want an example of a website which is doing great yet doesn't advertise nor contain advertisements then you're currently visiting it.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#538

Post by arendtio » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 7:32 AM UTC

dwild wrote: post #265

wpietri wrote: post #23

He doesn't quite say it by name, but most advertising is a classic arms race. Especially given how the internet now makes information easily available, a great deal of advertising is about manipulating consumers to pick company A's products over those from competitors B, C, and D. This forces those other companies to spend to get and keep customers. It's pure waste. For example, everybody on the planet is now familia…

I would have agreed in the past but now that my SO has started an escape room, if your ideal world existed, she would be bankrupt right now. Most ads isn't about manipulation, it's just about getting your attention and reminding you that this product exists. Ads are the only way to reach her market. You could argue that search is a good one too (which is true), but sadly people have trouble paying to watch videos onl…

Yes, you are right, there are (at least) two effects of advertising:

1. Education (let people know a company/product exists)

2. Manipulation (by various means)

From a moral point of view, the first effect is not bad. It actually helps people to make better decisions and extend their knowledge about available products and services.

However, the second effect is the harmful one. Since companies are trying to make money, they want as many people as possible to buy their products. So they start lying, leaving the negative aspects of their products out, use visual material that creates yearning contexts, present the information at a higher frequency than relevant and so on. So saying it is just about getting your attention is a huge understatement.

Simply put, the advertising industry tries to find human vulnerabilities on a daily basis. Sadly, not to inform and help protect us, but to exploit them. If advertising was actually about helping society, the spending would be more like a tax (independent from the effect), the visual appearance would be standardized and the process of presenting ads would be strictly controlled by a neutral entity. Furthermore, everybody would be allowed to not participate. Maybe the receivers of that valuable, educating information should even pay to have access to it.

And I am sure, at this point you are with me, that the majority of ads aren't about educating people but about placing information in their heads.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#539

Post by Fnoord » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 7:33 AM UTC

spaced-out wrote: post #533

cousin_it wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I've been saying for years that someone should make a search engine for the ad-free segment of the internet :-) Then we could use it most of the time, and fall back to Google explicitly when doing queries with commercial intent.

How much per month would you pay for such a service?

Advertisement-bugged content is indeed essentially content for the poor. The rich just buy an iPhone and buy the apps they use on it so they don't see advertisements.

I'm willing to pay for Mozilla Firefox and Duck Duck Go and Wikipedia. I'm not sure it should be paid in month or by amount of usage. The beauty of Wikipedia is that it is open source, same with Firefox. Not sure about DDG.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#540

Post by buboard » Thu, Aug 01, 2019, 7:43 AM UTC

gatherhunterer wrote: post #512

buboard wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How else will you grab the attention of people already locked into their networks and very resistant to change? Small startups dont have enormous budgets to pay google for it

Submit it as a “Show HN” or make the intent clear in the title instead of being duplicitous. Throwing money at the problem and being deceptive are not the only solutions.

typically they are not wholly deceptive, or else they wouldnt get upvoted