Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What if we made advertising illegal?

simone.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 1001 posts

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#201

Post by hedayet »

doug-moen wrote: post #195

Advertising was originally illegal on the internet. It was for non-profit activities only (university and industrial research and educational activities). When the world wide web first deployed in 1989, web advertising was illegal. The rules changed some time in the early 1990's. I do remember a major scandal that occurred in the 1980's when somebody posted an advertisement to usenet. At the time, there was a lot of…

I’d love to have an ad-free internet, sure. But simply introducing regulations won’t make that happen. There’s too much money in advertising to stop it, and that money can fund an alternative, ad-supported internet that could offer a significantly superior experience: FOR FREE!

When we talk about banning ads, we tend to underestimate the power of capitalism and consumerism, while overestimating how much people truly value the privacy of their online privacy.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#202

Post by philipwhiuk »

UncleEntity wrote: post #148
philipwhiuk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, it is 100% free speech. It's speech for sure. > 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. Except that they can and do, as you outline below. All laws are arbitrary. > Third, restrictions on free speech MUST fulfill some overriding public good like yelling "fire" in a…

> Except that they can and do, as you outline below. All laws are arbitrary. The third rule follows from the second, the government isn't allowed to curtail speech except under extraordinary circumstances which has been whittled down to basically "panic and disorder" and "fighting words". The other two are civil torts if I'm not mistaken, you can't be arrested for slander or libel. There's others but they are extreme…

> There's others but they are extremely limited.

By the laws that people write which the article proposes to change.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#203

Post by financetechbro »

Anecdotally, my QoL has gotten much better once I made a conscious attempt to avoid being fed advertisements. I’ve stopped using social media and pay for YouTube premium. It’s night and day difference in terms of my purchase patterns and overall level of happiness with the things I currently have.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#205

Post by Animats »

Sao Paulo, Brazil, made outdoor advertising illegal. That worked out quite well.

The US used to forbid prescription drug advertising. That seemed to work.

Ads for liquor, marijuana, and gambling are prohibited in many jurisdictions.

The FCC once limited the number of minutes of ads per hour on the public airwaves. That limit was below 10% of air time in the 1960s.

The SEC used to limit ads for financial products to dull "tombstone" ads, which appeared mostly in the Wall Street Journal.

A useful restriction might be to make advertising non tax deductible as a business expense. That encourages putting value into cost of goods sold rather than marketing.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#206

Post by gorfian_robot »

senderista wrote: post #189

So some of the most critical public goods of our age, which are currently mostly ad-funded, like web search, video hosting, email hosting, smartphone navigation, etc. would become publicly funded? Great, I'd like to live in that world too. But this article says nothing about how to get there (actually it considers the demise of Google et al to be an argument in favor without even considering the fact that in the abse…

you can pay money for goods and service. (just saying)

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#207

Post by Workaccount2 »

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…

Reminder for everyone: HN is a advertisement for Ycombinator. This "free discussion website" is an ad.

I really think people take so much for granted that even when they think about what they take for granted, they still can only scratch the surface.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#208

Post by el_memorioso »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #115
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.

São Paulo implemented "Cidade Limpa" which banned posted ads. It was said to renew the city.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#209

Post by YurgenJurgensen »

senderista wrote: post #189

So some of the most critical public goods of our age, which are currently mostly ad-funded, like web search, video hosting, email hosting, smartphone navigation, etc. would become publicly funded? Great, I'd like to live in that world too. But this article says nothing about how to get there (actually it considers the demise of Google et al to be an argument in favor without even considering the fact that in the abse…

All ad-funded services are really customer-funded.
Post reply on HN