[deleted]
Advertising Is a Cancer on Society
121–130 of 657 posts
Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society
#122I recall watching, some years ago, a documentary about the making of Tetris in which one of the contributors noted how much less colourful public spaces were in the advertising-free Soviet Union compared to the West. Which isn't to say that a better balance couldn't be struck (in the West and elsewhere) now, but 'cancer' is the sort of thing you want to eradicate rather than moderate.
I would imagine the authoritarian nature of the Soviet Union would suppress other displays of colour also. Much of the colour in my city is street art
https://www.christchurchnz.com/christchurch/arts-and-culture...
Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society
#123He 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…
If every company stopped advertising then google and facebook and twitter will disappear. Are all these companies pure waste? How do you fund a replacement for them? Should these services be provided by governments?
I do not have the sources by hand, but I think google and co make only about some $ per user per year.
In other words, most users could easily afford it.
And yes, here is the current problem, the mindset of the people. Not willing to pay for services and rather get it for "free" and accept manipulation and time waste. On the other hand, where services are adfree avaiable, like netflix, users indeed do pay. So I am positive that it is about to change.
Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
I went and visited my parents who still have cable. I sat and watched for a little while and was dumbstruck by the ads every few minutes. It was unbearable. I don't know how anyone can deal with it unless you don't know better
We were at a rented condo and my 6 year old told me that paw patrol was broken, she said it kept stopping and starting. I had to go watch it with her before realizing she was talking about advertisements. She had never seen advertisements before (having only ever watched shows like paw patrol on DVDs checked out from the library) and didn't understand what was going on. It was really eye opening for me.
This exact situation happened with my 4 year old. He only gets "TV" time from streaming services. When we tried to let him watch cartoons at an Airbnb he told us the "channel was changing" whenver ads came on.
Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society
#125Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society
#126Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society
#127Compulsory quote "Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we w…
Maybe I'm misinterpreting but didn't the movie show that everything Tyler does and says is 100% wrong?
Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society
#128I feel this is a new trend among people.
* I don't like something. * Why do people do it? It is not even effective. * It should be outlawed.
If you and a bunch of other people like you think advertising is a waste of money, what is preventing you from starting your own company that does not use advertising? I promise you the government will not come and force you to buy commercial time or Facebook ads.
Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society
#129He 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…
You don't think they have ever tried that. They stopped ad spend in certain locations and in those locations sales went down. People don't have time to research every single choice in their lives. At some point you just go with brand trust. When I see Uncle Floyd's Cola and CocaCola, I just go with what I know. Advertising establishes brand trust.
Some advertising, like Superbowl ads, does establish brand trust - because you know a fly-by-night company couldn't afford a Superbowl ad. But targeted advertising, which is the whole point of adtech, cannot do that - because you never know if it was shown to a million people or just you.
Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society
#130This is a dogmatic viewpoint I think often seen in very technical people who are unwilling to see the interconnectedness of how our society works. I bet there's any number of things this person values that simply wouldn't exist without advertising. It's a childish and immature opinion really. Anyone who hates advertising this much should show their commitment by working at an organization that does not advertise. Loa…
I've worked at an organization that failed to advertise its products, causing massive inefficiency & waste - lots of people have access to our technology but don't know about it and end up implementing the same basic CRUD app over and over. Don't underestimate the economic loss caused by people just not knowing there's a better way.
Right, but there's a difference between the occasional text or non-animated static image ad and the sorts of browser-fingerprinting spyware prevalent today.
There's also a time and place for ads, and the article's examples (like actual medical documents) are neither.