What if we made advertising illegal? • Hacker News Board

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#301

Post by jajko » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 8:49 PM UTC

LunaSea wrote: post #271

gcp123 wrote: post #262

I can’t stop thinking about this article. I spent a long time in ad tech before switching to broader systems engineering. The author captures something I've struggled to articulate to friends and family about why I left the industry. The part that really struck me was framing advertising and propaganda as essentially the same mechanism - just with different masters. Having built targeting systems myself, this rings p…

> Try this thought experiment from the article - imagine a world without advertising. Products would still exist. Commerce would still happen. But newspapers, TV and Youtube would die out.

Yeah, some loss, a very visible one. But what we are losing now is much bigger, albeit much harder to point finger on and quantify. Some inner quality and strength that probably doesnt even have a name.

Most people never even thought about ads that way.

For my own little part - firefox and ublock origin since it exists, on phone too. To the point of almost physically allergic to ads, aby ads, they cause a lasting disgust with given brand. I detest being manipulated, and this is not even hidden, a very crude and primitive way.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#302

Post by y42 » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 8:49 PM UTC

mgraczyk wrote: post #286

Is there any concrete evidence that anything bad has ever happened as a result of advertising? I don't like rap music, but I think it would obviously stupid of me to claim that it's harmful because I dislike the aesthetics. What is the steel man for "advertising bad"? Articles like this always take for granted that advertising is harmful, whereas on the contrary I'm starting from a position where advertising is one o…

it's not really about advertising, but it's effects. advertising per se is not bad, basically it's just some kind of product information. that's all. but it's coming with some negative effects that are bad. SEO and Affiliate are one of the best examples to that. the thing is that advertising is connected to revenue/profit. which is the root cause of all little problems up the stream.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#303

Post by sneak » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 8:50 PM UTC

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…

“begs the question” means something entirely different than “raises the question”, fyi.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#304

Post by sethammons » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 8:50 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #283

imiric wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need to go into absurd discussions in order to prevent 99% of the harm that comes from modern advertising. The line is clear: is money being exchanged in order to promote a product? That's advertising. Someone I know mentioning a product because they want to recommend it to me? Not advertising. Giving out "free" samples? Presumably someone is being paid to do that, so advertising. We can later quibble about…

Commercial speech is protected by the First Amendment.

Should it be?

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#305

Post by nico » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 8:50 PM UTC

mixmastamyk wrote: post #288

gcp123 wrote: post #262

I can’t stop thinking about this article. I spent a long time in ad tech before switching to broader systems engineering. The author captures something I've struggled to articulate to friends and family about why I left the industry. The part that really struck me was framing advertising and propaganda as essentially the same mechanism - just with different masters. Having built targeting systems myself, this rings p…

> framing advertising and propaganda as essentially the same mechanism… You’ll likely be pleased to hear they use the word “propaganda” for advertising in Portuguese, at least in Brazil.

Same in Spanish. Propaganda and publicidad are interchangeable

Which makes it actually really hard to talk about political propaganda

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#306

Post by exe34 » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 8:51 PM UTC

gcp123 wrote: post #262

I can’t stop thinking about this article. I spent a long time in ad tech before switching to broader systems engineering. The author captures something I've struggled to articulate to friends and family about why I left the industry. The part that really struck me was framing advertising and propaganda as essentially the same mechanism - just with different masters. Having built targeting systems myself, this rings p…

I find it hard to imagine. I hate advertising as much as the next guy - I intentionally try to associate negative thoughts with any adverts that interrupt a video I'm watching (I nearly ordered hellofresh after getting a voucher, but they've interrupted my YouTube experience too many times in the past).

But how do you separate advertising from product recommendations? Would it only apply if the person doing the recommending is getting paid for it?

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#307

Post by martin-t » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 8:51 PM UTC

This has been on my mind ever since I realized 2 things:

- the difference between zero-sum and positive-sum games

- that large parts of society are engaged in zero- (or even negative-) sum games 1) some through choice or 2) because they are forced to, to be able to compete with group 1)

Advertising, manipulation, misinformation, disinformation, and lying are all related phenomena with negative effects on both individuals and society.

Just like Wales is the first place to propose punishing lying, at least from some positions of power, I am looking forward to whatever country becoming the first to make advertising illegal, at least in some forms and scales.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#308

Post by mgraczyk » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 8:51 PM UTC

y42 wrote: post #302

mgraczyk wrote: post #286

Is there any concrete evidence that anything bad has ever happened as a result of advertising? I don't like rap music, but I think it would obviously stupid of me to claim that it's harmful because I dislike the aesthetics. What is the steel man for "advertising bad"? Articles like this always take for granted that advertising is harmful, whereas on the contrary I'm starting from a position where advertising is one o…

it's not really about advertising, but it's effects. advertising per se is not bad, basically it's just some kind of product information. that's all. but it's coming with some negative effects that are bad. SEO and Affiliate are one of the best examples to that. the thing is that advertising is connected to revenue/profit. which is the root cause of all little problems up the stream.

I definitely agree, and I think we should focus on mitigating the actual bad things while either recognizing or considering that the ads themselves are actually good. It's definitely possible to improve the situation and trying to give up and destroy everything will not help (I don't agree that profit motive is bad though, it's incredible and beautiful as an aligning force for humanity)

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#309

Post by thimkerbell » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 8:51 PM UTC

gcp123 wrote: post #262

I can’t stop thinking about this article. I spent a long time in ad tech before switching to broader systems engineering. The author captures something I've struggled to articulate to friends and family about why I left the industry. The part that really struck me was framing advertising and propaganda as essentially the same mechanism - just with different masters. Having built targeting systems myself, this rings p…

It's been tried, in sci fi. The result is Influencers.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#310

Post by hurtuvac78 » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 8:52 PM UTC

I think this is an excellent discussion to have.

Say we implement this, a natural consequence would be mega-corporations providing every service possible. My Yamaha bike displays a message to promote a Yamaha music keyboard, then expanding to a new Yamaha bookstore or grocery chain.

No money exchanged out of the first-party Yamaha holding.

We would need to improve the proposal to prevent that too.