What if we made advertising illegal? • Hacker News Board

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#321

Post by worik » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 9:00 PM UTC

imiric wrote: post #127

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…

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…

> The line is clear

It is not. It never is. But that is not a big problem.

Around the boundary cases there will be injustice and strife. But only around the boundary cases.

We deal with this all the time in our societies. Some societies are better at it than others

"The perfect is an enemy of the good"

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#322

Post by markus_zhang » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 9:01 PM UTC

I have mixed feelings about advertising. Small businesses definitely need advertising to at least compete with the bigger guys, but online platforms such as Google and Facebook are simply landlords in the electronics age. Microsoft too, with its "monopoly" of desktop OS and how it tries to force ads down our throats.

I feel it's impossible to get rid of those Ads platforms such as Google or Microsoft. Businesses need them. If you ask me, I'd say, government should levy a heavy tax on Ads , so basically like gas stations, they are only allowed say 10% of profit margin, and they must cap their ads somehow. Ads is basically a public service, and every public service, if not run by the State, should only allow a very small margin of profit, like public transit and such.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#323

Post by mathgeek » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 9:04 PM UTC

exe34 wrote: post #306

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 recom…

> I nearly ordered hellofresh after getting a voucher, but they've interrupted my YouTube experience too many times in the past

I totally relate to the “I’m OK with certain types of advertising” angle here.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#324

Post by worik » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 9:06 PM UTC

Read the bio of the author. It includes this:

> I spend my time as a creative marketing strategist and technologist, growing public companies and startups.

Sounds like they may know what they are talking about....

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#325

Post by walleeee » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 9:08 PM UTC

gameman144 wrote: post #249

This feels very similar in my mind to blanket concepts like "let's ban lobbying". There are certainly specific modes or practices in lobbying that are damaging to society, but lobbying itself (specifically, informing lawmakers about your specific perspective and desires) is a valid and desirable function. Likewise, advertising on its own at its core is useful: there might be something that adds value to your life tha…

> lobbying itself (specifically, informing lawmakers about your specific perspective and desires) is a valid and desirable function.

If it were a truly demotic activity you would have a point. But as it is, lobbying (in the US at least) is almost exclusively by/for large/moneyed interests, and the part of it which isn't is considerably less effective than that which is.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#326

Post by numpad0 » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 9:09 PM UTC

imiric wrote: post #127

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…

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…

I'm wondering if it's possible that the reality might be working the other way around than perceived. Could there be steaming can of worms that modern rampant commercial advertising is venting and holding down?

Studio Ghibli made ~$220m on Spirited Away. What if they made $2.2T, is the quality going to go up, or down? And, would there be less ads, if no one made even $2.2 on them?

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#327

Post by timewizard » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 9:09 PM UTC

Terr_ wrote: post #284

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 is a tricky and uncomfortable truth that human minds are hackable. On the flip side, we've had many thousands of years of adversarial training, so it's not as if protections don't exist—at least for a very classical modes of attack.

It's a pattern recognition machine dominated by reward feedback mechanisms.

It's not hackable so much as it lacks resistance to environmental noise.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#328

Post by throwaway173738 » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 9:10 PM UTC

Brian_K_White wrote: post #179

kelseyfrog wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No. This is called selective enforcement and is the worst thing in the world. It gives the enforcers the option to pick on whoever they want and give a pass to whever they want, as if there were no law at all. There is effectively no law at all, because literally anyone doing anything can be called either guilty or innocent at the whim of the person doing the enforcing, or whoever controls them.

No, what it does is require the courts to interpret the meaning of the word and create precedent. That’s not the same as selective enforcement.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#329

Post by hypertexthero » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 9:16 PM UTC

One way to do it in social media:

https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2025/04/05/The-CoSoc...

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#330

Post by 1oooqooq » Sat, Apr 05, 2025, 9:16 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…

1. this is not new. radio, print, theater... every thing was monetizing attention to great success.

2. all advertising venues (radio, web, print, outdoors) all make boatloads of money during political campaigns AND government "awareness" campaigns (which are all disguised political campaigns with tax money). most radios stations yet around, live exclusively of this revenue.

so, the system was built on the two premises you wrongly consider side effects or unintended consequences. making it illegal is the only alternative. everything else is just ignoring the real cause: it was for exactly that.