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What if we made advertising illegal?

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Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#411

Post by njarboe »

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…

One bright spot is that I find it much easier to avoid ads in my media than in say the 1990's. There is usually a higher paid tier with no ads. Youtube, X, HBO, etc and ad blockers on the web. I'm off of Google search with Kagi. I mostly use services that I pay for an much prefer that model.

But everything going to LLMs will make it harder to see/know about the ads. Google search was great when it first came out and then SEO happened. How long before you (NSA, CCP, big corp) can pay OpenAI to seed its training data set (if this is not already happening)?

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#412

Post by appreciatorBus »

pessimizer wrote: post #399
cogman10 wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that will give other nations an economic advantage and jeopardizing long-term sovereignty. What? How? Advertising isn't a good or service. About the only way I could see it economically being damaging is if you subscribe to the "broken windows" theory of economics.

Advertising tells me what goods and services are available, and at what prices. This is a service.

So did phone books and catalogues. Ensuring why dispersal of information about services and prices does not require advertising.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#413

Post by wat10000 »

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…

Anyone who has found out about a useful product through advertising that you wouldn’t have know about otherwise, purchased it, and been pleased with your purchase, raise your hand.

Anyone?

This whole “advertising is useful” thing sounds like the spherical cow of marketing to me. It might make sense in abstract but it doesn’t reflect reality.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#414

Post by abracadaniel »

margalabargala wrote: post #369
Ferret7446 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> imagine a world without advertising I can't because a world with magic and world peace is more realistic and believable. It's impossible. How do you even define advertising? If you define it conservatively, then advertising will skirt through the loopholes. If you define it liberally, then you have an unfair, authoritarian system that will definitely be selectively enforced against political enemies. And in all cas…

> If you define it conservatively, then advertising will skirt through the loopholes. This would result in a better world still, without the authoritarian system you describe. No need to get it perfect the first try, just start small. For an example of this in action, drive through any of the US states that do not allow billboards.

Many complex problems can become easier if we can accept that the solutions can be malleable and designed to adapt. We just don’t really apply that to laws for the most part.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#415

Post by appreciatorBus »

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.

* “the newspapers, tv channels and YouTube content that had so little value to society that no one was willing to pay for will die out.”

Yes.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#416

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#417

Post by troyvit »

Regarding ads as free speech:

> Bullshit. No one is entitled to yell at you "GET 20% OFF THIS UNDERWEAR YOU GLANCED AT YESTERDAY" with a dopamine megaphone in your bedroom. And to track 90% of your life to know when and how to say it. That's not free speech, that's harassment.

The same argument could be applied to the homeless people I see on most corners these days with cardboard signs designed to pull my heart strings. It's a different brain chemical, but it's actually real and it affects my re-uptake inhibitors a lot more. Should we ban them? Or just their signs?

Here are a few of the many defenses against advertising that are all free:

- Ad blockers for browsers

- Kill your television

- Listen to and support public media (unless those sponsorship messages count as ads which is a valid argument)

If literally everybody applied just those three things, advertising would die a natural death without having to ban anything.

I'm a bit of a free speech zealot, and so I'll pull the slippery slope fallacy and just ask: after ads, what do we ban next? Sponsorship messages like public radio uses? Product placement in movies? Would we be allowed to have _any_ real products in movies or would everybody drink Slurm instead of Coke and drive around in Edisons instead of Teslas? Are movie previews allowed? What about product reviews where the product is given to the reviewer for free? What about Simone's presence on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert years ago? That was entertainment, but it also clearly advertised her YouTube channel. Is that allowed?

We humans are one of the few animals that have within us multiple ways to kill ourselves. While that's mostly thanks to our awesome thumbs, our speech is another powerful tool. We're also one of the few animals that can, with much work, transcend our weaknesses and be more than the goop that makes us up. Finding out whether we do is the whole reason I'm sticking around.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#419

Post by lostdog »

stock_toaster wrote: post #106
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…

In addition to sibling commenters mentioning incentive-side (eg. paid to promote) considerations, I also propose both an "immersion" and/or "consent" component. When you are dining, and are suggested food pairings -- I'm there to eat, so suggesting something food related from the same establishment, that may enhance my meal experience, makes sense and generally does not feel unduly interruptive. In a way, I consent t…

Airline credit card announcements on flights is a perfect example of what should be banned, but getting the law right is tricky.

IMO it should be illegal due to using a system for safety announcements for non-safety profit related reasons.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#420

Post by klntsky »

> The financial incentives to create addictive digital content would instantly disappear

It's naive to think so. The obvious argument against that is that the behavior of the consumer, not the producer, is what constitutes the problem

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