You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

I don't know, this doesn't sound like an actionable advice to me. Which is pretty much why I take advertising as a given. And, yes, I don't think one should defend it. I mean, just watch some anti-utopia sci-fi, where everyone has to watch ads about everywhere, then compare it with the direction we are heading to, and reassess your position on "ads being ok".

But I just don't see an alternative, and I don't imagine how one can draw a line between what's good and what isn't. In a sense, there cannot be good ads by definition. In a perfect world, there is no ads, because there is no direct competition — and that's the only way. There is only 1 laundry powder, so you don't have to choose. There may be several laundry powders, each one being the best for a specific type of clothing. And there may be even several laundry powders for each type, one simply being cheaper than the other. But there is always one definitive answer, to which one is the best, so you can make your choice just applying the appropriate filters in your groceries app. Similarly, when you choose a smartphone, you don't really need reminded about samsung being the best everywhere you go: you just go to gsmarena (or such), use some filters and make an informed choice. If an app/consultant/oracle/search engine can truly allow you to choose what's best for you, nobody would think about it as an advertisement, and nobody would need to place it anywhere, because you'll consciously ask it when you need an advice.

Ads are not about that. They are about shouting your product name loud enough to substitute or even obstruct making an informed choice. This is pretty much necessary, when you have 20 laundry powder brands, that make essentially the same product, neither being the best for anyone. And while it could be unnecessary when selling a phone (since all of them are actually different, even if only in how they look), it isn't in the current market, since they need to persuade you that you need a new phone.

So, all ads are bad, but they are unavoidable in a free-market economics, where competition exists. And controlling them doesn't sound ok to me. To be fair, I'm somewhat libertarian-minded in general, so of course it doesn't sound ok to me, but, seriously, where should one draw the line? Is product-placement in movies ok? Is a guy shouting on a street for people come into a restaurant ok? Sure, there is a lot of gradient in-between all this and spoiling the city landscape or even drawing coca cola banners with lasers on the night's sky. But then regulating such things isn't really about regulating ads, since this could be about art projects as well. And, furthermore, one could just call coca-cola banner an art project anyway.

So, I don't see what should I be fighting against, and how should I do that. I appreciate that somebody out there is concerned and stands against evil ad-corporations, but I'm almost holding back to not call it futile.

Oh another Santa Barbara resident! I was initially a little confused reading this thread until I remembered our great regulations.

Some places have banned advertising on billboards and such, Vermont for example: https://www.google.com/amp/s/twistedsifter.com/2014/10/why-v...

How accurate did you get? Are frame-to-frame probabilities pretty independent? I wonder if you can hit some arbitrary threshold by implementing something like "n frames in a row."

This comment hijacked my attention.