What if we made advertising illegal? • Hacker News Board

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#51

Post by verdverm » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 12:41 AM UTC

marssaxman wrote: post #8

verdverm wrote: post #2

I used to know one of the great ad execs from Mama Bell and he told me nothing happens in this world until a person decides to trade a dollar for something. How do they decide such things? How do people become aware of what things are available for purchase? Another thing he said was that they knew half of their ad spend was "wasted" on people who would never buy what you have to sell. The feeling I get from the auth…

> feeling I get from the author is that targeted advertising is the problem Non-targeted advertising is also a blight. If you've never visited a place where billboards are illegal, it may be hard to imagine what a relief it is to be free of them.

yeah, and now those trucks with video on the side they drive around, all that stuff needs to end, citizens united too while we're at it (possibly a pre-req)

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#52

Post by g-b-r » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 1:51 AM UTC

pizzafeelsright wrote: post #43

g-b-r wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just change it to right to express your opinions, which is what was probably meant by the founding fathers. For sure they didn't mean right to bribe and right of companies to "speak", anyhow, so it needs to changed in any case.

Opinions are the positions of those outside of power. Opinions with a sword quickly become fact or treated with the same weight.

Eh?

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#53

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 2:22 AM UTC

Don't need to ban advertising everywhere

Just need to ban advertising on the internet

When I first used the internet, advertising, i.e., commercial use, was prohibited

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#54

Post by satvikpendem » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 3:22 AM UTC

tcfhgj wrote: post #33

satvikpendem wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not. I don't want to pay for every single website I visit for example, it creates a chilling effect overall as to my want of visiting many different sites.

1) Not every single site is displaying ads, e.g. Codeberg.org 2) aren't you paying indirectly anyways? (With only a part of the revenue actually landing in the bags of the operator of the site - another part is used to fund Google Chrome and people who design ads)

Sure. But the sites I read and others like news site definitely have ads. Imagine news all being a subscription, fewer people would actually be informed, the opposite of what should be the case. NYTimes can do it because they're big enough but most news sites especially smaller or local ones cannot.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#55

Post by pibaker » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 4:05 AM UTC

codingjoe wrote: post #27

We could just start making it illegal to advertise to children. Without age verification, it's just a burden of proof with the advertiser that their ad isn't targeting children and a ban on age specific target groups for ad platforms.

Do you really want to give platforms more incentives to push for age verification?

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#56

Post by pibaker » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 4:08 AM UTC

bediger4000 wrote: post #49

ifh-hn wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...no 1st Amendment which I am okay with doing away with as it has served its purpose. Has it? I would love to here the reasoning behind this.

This isn't rigorous of course, but "free speech" has come to mean oligarchs and corporations more-or-less outright buying politicians and supreme court judges, and media that's limited to touting some oligarch's best interests, and carrying very invasive, targeted advertising. When ordinary people do manage to offer up an opinion on a larger scale, they're cancelled or worse, doxxed and targeted by something like Ale…

So you think free speech only benefits Trump and his friends?

Have you stopped for a split second and thought about what can happen to YOU, you know, someone who seem to have issues with the current president, if there is no free speech?

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#57

Post by t0bia_s » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 4:22 AM UTC

satvikpendem wrote: post #54

tcfhgj wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Not every single site is displaying ads, e.g. Codeberg.org 2) aren't you paying indirectly anyways? (With only a part of the revenue actually landing in the bags of the operator of the site - another part is used to fund Google Chrome and people who design ads)

Sure. But the sites I read and others like news site definitely have ads. Imagine news all being a subscription, fewer people would actually be informed, the opposite of what should be the case. NYTimes can do it because they're big enough but most news sites especially smaller or local ones cannot.

I do not read news sites and I do not consider myself as uninformed.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#58

Post by t0bia_s » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 4:27 AM UTC

cadamsdotcom wrote: post #40

It'll get replaced with something even more annoying that isn't called advertising but is functionally identical. People make things then talk about them. It's normal. A careful read of this piece should show you why advertising was invented in the first place and why it's fundamental to commerce. Unless you want to go back to buying from your neighbor or buying only what your limited circle of friends can recommend…

Why product needs advertisement? Because it's terrible and is unable to justify it's existence. Good product is advertisement to itself.

Imagine that market is filled only by useful products.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#59

Post by cognitiveinline » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 5:48 AM UTC

t0bia_s wrote: post #57

satvikpendem wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But the sites I read and others like news site definitely have ads. Imagine news all being a subscription, fewer people would actually be informed, the opposite of what should be the case. NYTimes can do it because they're big enough but most news sites especially smaller or local ones cannot.

I do not read news sites and I do not consider myself as uninformed.

where are you getting informed about the news?

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#60

Post by cognitiveinline » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 6:03 AM UTC

tcfhgj wrote: post #32

gdulli wrote: post #30

The best concert I ever went to was one I only knew about from a TV commercial. Somewhere along the way I started blocking ads and commercials aggressively and in hindsight I've noticed that (for example) there's fewer movies/concerts I'm seeing because I've cut off a mechanism for learning what's out there for subjects I'm not in the habit of actively researching. After 30 years I've stopped watching baseball altoge…

> I accidentally let myself get too extreme about deciding that ads are evil. Not surprising I regret that, given the nature of extremism. Sounds like a good argumentation to consume some cocaine. Not consuming it at all is just too extreme

Sure. And water. And food too.