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What if we made advertising illegal?

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Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#111

Post by em-bee »

echoangle wrote: post #75
lukev wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Advertising is a zero-sum game. If nobody advertised, every solution would be equally discoverable via search and word-of-mouth. It's only when some actors start advertising that the others must as well, so they don't fall behind. And so billions of dollars are spent that could have gone to making better products. It's basically the prisoner's dilemma at scale.

I disagree, one component of advertising is discovering things you didn’t even know existed. Having to actively look stuff like that up would be much harder.

i haven't come across a single ad that would have helped me to discover things i didn't know existed. and i don't think i missed out on anything because of that.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#112

Post by WalterBright »

esafak wrote: post #88
galangalalgol wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who pay for consumer research type services. "I want a general-purpose systems programming language with a C-like syntax that compiles to native code. It should be statically typed and supports both automatic (garbage collected) and manual memory management." One micro payment later I have a list of links and reviews. In this case the research is the product instead of me.

Then your company would be beholden to the Yelp's of the world. Pay up or have your listing removed.

Nobody is even going to know to put you on their list, unless you do marketing and promotion.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#113

Post by tener »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #98
toomim wrote: post #10

This begs the question: how could you reliably distinguish advertising from other forms of free speech? The courts already distinguish "commercial speech" as a class of speech. Would we prevent all forms of commercial speech? What about a waiter asking you "would you like to try a rosé with that dish? It pairs very well together." Is that "advertising" that would need to be outlawed? What about giving out free sample…

The ambiguity of these questions is a feature rather than a bug. Being unable to tell when something is "advertising" forces everyone to think twice before hawking their wares, which is exactly what we want if we intend to kill ads. The chilling effect is precisely the intention. It’s the engineer’s curse to believe that airtight laws are automatically better, or that justice springs from mechanistic certainty. The w…

So we end up in a system in which those with money to litigate will do what they want? I'd rather have airtight laws instead.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#114

Post by ambicapter »

echoangle wrote: post #75
lukev wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Advertising is a zero-sum game. If nobody advertised, every solution would be equally discoverable via search and word-of-mouth. It's only when some actors start advertising that the others must as well, so they don't fall behind. And so billions of dollars are spent that could have gone to making better products. It's basically the prisoner's dilemma at scale.

I disagree, one component of advertising is discovering things you didn’t even know existed. Having to actively look stuff like that up would be much harder.

That component doesn’t matter because advertising also makes it harder to find what you need, since everyone is doing it. If you didn’t know it previously existed, how do you even know if it will solve your problem like it says it does?

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#115

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

iambateman wrote: post #57

To go halfway to the extreme of this article, I think banning large-scale billboards in my city would make a big difference. It feels like having a calmer public space is more in the public interest than reminding them to drink Miller Lite.

Vermont bans billboards and it is amazing.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#116

Post by fixprix »

renewiltord wrote: post #52
fixprix wrote: post #44

This makes no sense. I build a great product. How the hell am I supposed to tell anyone about it outside of my immediate friends and family? Am I supposed to rely on the network effect to reach an audience? That sounds insane. Capitalism depends on advertising to let people know of the product or service that is more cost effective than existing solutions. The advertising budget is dependent on knowing your product i…

Well, personally, I think you shouldn’t even tell your friends and family. That kind of “native advertising” is ruining human relationships. People should stumble upon your product. If someone mentions it to someone else, that alone should be grounds to shutter your company. Even so-called “catchy domain names” are a deep evil that we didn’t have in the heyday of the US: the ‘70s. Your product should be named exactly…

I actually agree. Telling friends and family will get you more of a 'flash in the pan' response. They are not content creators or influencers. You need to do advertising to figure out if your product/business is even economically feasible.

For example, run an ad campaign on Google, figure out your CPC (cost per customer). See if that is even below your LTV (lifetime value per customer) plus operating expenses. And then tweak all the variables in your product and campaign to actually create some sort of sustainable business flywheel.

Having an amazing product and 'waiting' for your network to spread the word to all potential customers.. it's absurd to think that would work. It's hard enough even with big ad campaigns to reach potential customers.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#117

Post by djoldman »

This is a really interesting question.

Some thought experiments:

What do [search engines, social networks, newspapers] look like? I assume they'd all be paid and you'd get some free tastes and then decide which you'd pay for in the long term (à la kagi).

By removing the third party payer, the service provider has no incentive to do anything for them, whether aligned or not with the user. That is the big plus.

What about all the money that companies use to promote their products and services through advertisements and marketing? Some portion of that would probably go to making their products better. The rest... from their standpoint, how do they even get a potential customer to know they exist? That's tough.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#118

Post by bigstrat2003 »

goatlover wrote: post #87
UncleEntity wrote: post #30

Ok... First, it is 100% free speech. Second, the government isn't allowed to make laws prohibiting the exercise of free speech based on the content of said speech. Nor can it take actions which are arbitrary or capricious. Third, restrictions on free speech MUST fulfill some overriding public good like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater or words meant to incite violence. Slander, libel, &etc. Fourth, why is it even…

I'm not convinced modern advertising qualifies as free speech. It's often manipulative, used by bad faith actors, used for tracking, slows websites down, is obtrusive, disrupts concentration, etc.

None of those things exempt something from speech protection in the US, as far as I'm aware. Different countries have different laws, but here you are legally allowed to say just about anything (including way worse stuff than any of the things you mentioned).

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#120

Post by ambicapter »

mathattack wrote: post #103

I like open questions like this. It forces us to think from first principles, and potentially tackle consequences. One problem that would come up… It would be very hard to get word out of new (better) products. If you have a great product that doesn’t lend itself to word of mouth, how will anyone know if you can’t advertise?

What does “doesn’t lend itself to word of mouth” mean? Products you can’t speak about?
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