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What if we made advertising illegal?

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Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#161

Post by permo-w »

amarant wrote: post #104

I had this idea before, but thinking about it, you very soon run into some pretty uncomfortable tradeoffs. The internet would change fundamentally. The article lists social networks as things that would disappear, and good riddance, but we'd also lose (free) search engines. Further, I'd argue that some forms of advertising are actually desirable. If I'm planning a vacation abroad, and want to make a reservation at a…

>but we'd also lose (free) search engines.

I doubt this. more likely we'd end up in a scenario where, as a way of capturing market share, large companies subsidise their search engine with other branches of their business, for example, hosting. also since we're speaking hypothetically about government interventions, there's no reason that a government couldn't set up a publicly owned search engine, in fact one may already exist, I don't know

>Further, I'd argue that some forms of advertising are actually desirable. If I'm planning a vacation abroad, and want to make a reservation at a hotel, I'd typically go to booking.com or one of it's competitors. Those sites are pretty much 100% advertising, but how else am I gonna find a hotel on the other side of the planet, in a country I've never been before?

it's not advertising if it's on their own website

>You also run into some tricky hairsplitting questions. Where do you draw the line on advertising? Are webshops allowed to list 3rd party products? Or is that advertising? I don't want to outlaw online shopping entirely, it's extremely handy! What about search engine results from those webshops? Free search engines will disappear, but let's say I have a paid account and search for "buy dell laptop". Are the results advertising? How do you differentiate and define the cases legally?

these are very simple dilemmas:

are webshops allowed to list 3rd party products? yes, because you're on a webshop. practically all shops sell 3rd party products. advertising is listing products and services on non-commercial public places where people haven't chosen to engage with products

you search for "buy dell laptop", and the search engine has to produces the results that naturally bubble to the top from its algorithm

the issue I'd be more worried about with banning advertising is taking away the freedom it can allow small creators on places like Youtube, where now suddenly they'd be relying on subscriptions and/or donations, which can be a lot harder to come by than baseline advertising revenue. you'd get a lot more begging and pleading, and you'd get a lot more creators needing to rely on working under the umbrella of a larger organisation like they did before the internet

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#164

Post by johntitorjr »

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.

Some cities have exterior walls of buildings covered in ads. Other cities have them covered in murals. The latter are much more pleasant to be in.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#165

Post by saulpw »

okr wrote: post #71
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.

So, if no one competed to get ahead of competitors, by making better or cheaper products and to grab the available marketshare, we would just have better and cheaper products without it? Sounds flawed to me.

Why? It's another prisoner's dilemma.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#166

Post by starfezzy »

EDIT: When I said "I've felt the same way", I meant about outlawing advertising. Propaganda in general should be allowed—especially the political kind. But consumerist propaganda (aka advertising) needs to be abolished.

___

I've felt the same way. Some thoughts I had while reading:

> Propaganda is advertising for the state, and advertising is propaganda for the private. Same thing.

Rare to see someone else recognize this. Not all propaganda is malicious; all systematic spreading of ideas aimed at promoting a cause or influencing opinions is propaganda.

> Think about what's happened since 2016: Populists exploit ad marketplaces

This feels like calling out conservatives. Ironically, it's through relentless propaganda over a century that progressivism has become ascendant. We're reminded 24/7 from every mainstream institution, that what has historically been radically unpopular is ACTUALLY "normal" and "respectable". Indeed, it's only through such incessant propaganda that overwhelmingly unpopular trends have been able to take hold.

> what poisons our democracy is a liberating act in itself. An action against that blurry, “out-of-focus fascism”

What poisons our republic is progressives forgetting that they're ascendant and how they got there.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#167

Post by uneekname »

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.

My hometown did this, and I was surprised how bad billboards can be when I moved away

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#168

Post by UncleEntity »

teddyh wrote: post #100
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…

Are cigarette ads still free speech? Are you saying those should be legal again?

> Are cigarette ads still free speech?

Apparently there was a "significant public health crisis associated with tobacco use" according to the google.

I'm not even sure they're universally banned, I don't pay that much attention but seem to recall still seeing them in the windows of gas stations and whatnot.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#169

Post by bofadeez »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #138
kcatskcolbdi wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's open for discussion. Free speech is not limitless. You can wax poetically all you want about endowment by the creator, but try saying racial slurs on daytime TV and see how long that lasts. Advertisement is just another form of speech that can be limited.

> You can wax poetically all you want about endowment by the creator, but try saying racial slurs on daytime TV and see how long that lasts. You're conflating two senses of "free speech". Free speech is an ideal, which our society does not fully reach (as you correctly pointed out). But in the US, "free speech" is also sometimes used to refer to the legal protection from the first amendment. And in your example, that…

People in other countries also have natural rights. Even if they live under oppressive governments, the right to free speech still exists. It's the same logic used by abolitionists to justify ending slavery.

"Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government, and so are universal, fundamental and inalienable (they cannot be repealed by human laws, though one can forfeit their enjoyment through one's actions, such as by violating someone else's rights). Natural law is the law of natural rights.

Legal rights are those bestowed onto a person by a given legal system (they can be modified, repealed, and restrained by human laws). The concept of positive law is related to the concept of legal rights."

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#170

Post by mnky9800n »

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…

What about just restrict it to advertising on the internet?

The internet is supposed to be an information retrieval tool. Advertising’s whole goal is to stand between you and the information you actually want. And it does so by trying to anticipate instead of the thing you want, the thing you are most willing to buy next, whether that’s actual products with money or propaganda. Whereas an ad in a magazine about computers offers me relevant ads for products about computers. And if you read old ad copy a lot of it is a serious effort to try and convince you to buy their product. From some kind of argument for it. Instead of simply using statistics and data to predict what you will buy next. So this required the product to actually deliver something to justify the effort to advertise it.

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