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Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

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Re: Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

#51

Post by abdullahkhalids »

avalys wrote: post #38
bryanlarsen wrote: post #12

The argument for massive Pigouvian taxes on advertising seems much clearer. Advertising imposes massive costs on society and the viewers. These costs aren't borne by the advertiser, so they should be captured through massive taxes and put to good use. And many brands wouldn't feel much of an impact: what matters to Coke is that it spends more than Pepsi. If their $6B on advertising only buys 1/10th as many ads as it…

What’s the cost that advertising imposes exactly?

People have finite attention tokens to spend per day. Attention tokens are consumed when you make a conscious and deliberate decision to invest time in something, but they are also consumed when someone approaches you and talks to you.

Of course, people close to us usually are mindful of not consuming too many of our attention tokens. And some interruptions are useful to you, so they are welcome. Advertisements, on the other hand, consume the attention tokens of everyone who views them, and because they are optimizing for the revenue to the company, and not the benefit to the person, the expected benefit of each advertisement to the person is extremely low, if not downright negative.

Re: Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

#52

Post by Razengan »

jstanley wrote: post #17
coldpie wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah our societies functioned for centuries without targeted ads, and we can do it again. It's only the past decade or two that we've had targeted ads. I think you could compare targeted ads to selling drugs: there's clearly a market for it and it will sustain many peoples' livelihoods, but as a society we've seen the ill effects of letting them run rampant and decided we're better off highly regulating them. It's ti…

We also functioned for centuries without electricity, hot and cold running water, or good sanitation. The fact that we functioned without something doesn't imply that we're better off without it.

The fact that we functioned without something doesn't imply that we're better off with it.

Re: Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

#53

Post by adamisom »

avalys wrote: post #38
bryanlarsen wrote: post #12

The argument for massive Pigouvian taxes on advertising seems much clearer. Advertising imposes massive costs on society and the viewers. These costs aren't borne by the advertiser, so they should be captured through massive taxes and put to good use. And many brands wouldn't feel much of an impact: what matters to Coke is that it spends more than Pepsi. If their $6B on advertising only buys 1/10th as many ads as it…

What’s the cost that advertising imposes exactly?

Exactly seems like a pretty tough thing to answer. What's the exact effect on the climate of X or Y company?

Re: Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

#55

Post by avalys »

woodrowbarlow wrote: post #43
ghaff wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the tools are different and (very much in theory) more precisely targeted. But, at the end of the day, you're still mostly targeting populations based on their propensity to spend money with you. So you now target me with sports gear ads not just because I subscribe to Sports Illustrated but because I've bought sports gear and I'm in the Male 18-25 demographic. I agree that attempts to target at an individual le…

let me make a point about why i see one type of targeting as benign and the other (which i suppose could be called 'collaborative targeted marketing', because it involves sharing or aggregating data from multiple sources) as dangerous. if i subscribe to a magazine about fishing and it includes an advertisement about some new fishing lure, well... it's obvious why the fishing magazine might think i'm into fishing. but…

Do you think it should be legal for health insurers to ask you about your dangerous hobbies, and charge you more?

If so, are you really just upset about the idea of not being able to easily lie to them?

If not, why do you think other policyholders should pay more to cover your risky hobbies?

Re: Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

#56

Post by NikolaNovak »

ddevault wrote: post #7

Why don't we just ban advertising?

As concerned as I am for my privacy and control over my information I don't know that I would accept a straight theory of "Advertising is bad".

1. I appreciate, in principle, the notion that I may be informed of opportunities, products, services that might interest me. I'm more focused on my ability to control a) Information you gather on me and b) How when and what it is presented to me - rather than its existence.

2. As another poster pointed out, why are we focusing on advertising part (the outcome) rather than tracking and profiling (the cause)?

3. How do you define advertising? What definition do you propose that would without ambiguity allow indexes, listings, reviews, and sponsorships? In a world without "advertising", how do I find a product or service I require?

In other words, is this an even remotely in any parallel universe a thought-out, feasible suggestion?

Re: Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

#57

Post by avalys »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #51
avalys wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the cost that advertising imposes exactly?

People have finite attention tokens to spend per day. Attention tokens are consumed when you make a conscious and deliberate decision to invest time in something, but they are also consumed when someone approaches you and talks to you. Of course, people close to us usually are mindful of not consuming too many of our attention tokens. And some interruptions are useful to you, so they are welcome. Advertisements, on t…

Ok. So we ban advertising. Now you have to spend your “attention tokens” earning money to purchase the content you were previously getting for free. Is that better?

How about we let people make this choice themselves, just as we do now?

Re: Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

#58

Post by Mirioron »

indigochill wrote: post #24
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why don't we just ban advertising? Newspapers would need to be subscription-only or patronage-based. Distributors become kingmakers. If the incumbent's product is in the grocery stores and the upstart can't advertise, there's no path to entry apart from winning over a distributor. Niche products become nonviable. If you can't reach out to your customers, they have to reach out to you. That requires they know (a) th…

>Newspapers would need to be subscription-only or patronage-based. In my eyes, this would be a win. Journalism ideally should serve the readers. Aligning the business model (patronage/subscription-only) with the ideal seems like a good thing in the long run. Journalism (including but not limited to print) is filled with essentially noise that wouldn't be economically viable if the publishers had to justify the value…

It also means that people would have a lot less access to information about what's going on. I wouldn't subscribe to a single newspaper or magazine if it cost me money. I would guess that a lot of the people I know would do the same.

Knowing more about the world has been interesting and it probably has benefited my view of the world, but it hasn't given me anything tangible or anything I could point to. If anything it has occupied a lot of my time instead.

Re: Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

#59

Post by [deleted] »

jstanley wrote: post #17
coldpie wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah our societies functioned for centuries without targeted ads, and we can do it again. It's only the past decade or two that we've had targeted ads. I think you could compare targeted ads to selling drugs: there's clearly a market for it and it will sustain many peoples' livelihoods, but as a society we've seen the ill effects of letting them run rampant and decided we're better off highly regulating them. It's ti…

We also functioned for centuries without electricity, hot and cold running water, or good sanitation. The fact that we functioned without something doesn't imply that we're better off without it.

[deleted]

Re: Why Don’t We Just Ban Targeted Advertising?

#60

Post by throwaway5466 »

avalys wrote: post #48
throwaway5466 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very simple actually. No more sponsors, no more covering every square meter of public space with brands, no more commercials on TV, no more ads on websites. People will have to find other ways to make money, no one's entitled to a business model.

Most (in fact, almost all) advertisements are not on “public space”, they’re on private properties.

Alright, then ban displays of advertising if it has to reach eyes that didn't ask for it, the same way we ban pornography, gore or violent stuff on display.
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