Advertising Is a Cancer on Society • Hacker News Board

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#421

Post by dooglius » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 10:22 PM UTC

skummetmaelk wrote: post #348

sgeisler wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only a problem if healthcare is taxpayer-funded. Otherwise it's your and your insurer's problem to price this in somehow, maybe even offering cheaper plans for people living healthy (e.g. meeting weight goals).

The whole idea behind insurance is that the unlucky ones who require more care than average have their costs covered by those who require less than average. Taxpayer funding systems are literally the same thing. Yes you can get cheaper premiums by living healthy, but how far do you want to go? Are you going to let your insurance company log everything you eat and how many steps you walk every day? Seems much easier t…

The whole idea of insurance is amortization of rare costly events over large numbers of people. Ideally, each person's insurance cost is equal to the expected value of the payout.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#422

Post by cameronbrown » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 10:23 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #363

cm2012 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're operating in an adversarial environment where other businesses exist .

If they merely existed but didn’t engage in advertising, you could advertise and, consequently, outperform them. But they all know this too. This is the game theory I’m alluding to. It’s a Prisoners Dilemma except with added externalities in the cases where anyone advertises at all. Now, how does the prisoners dilemma get solved? External enforcement. In advertising that might entail laws and regulations to curtail a…

You could never remove advertising without silencing companies. Let that sink in. As long as companies exist and have tools to reach out, even if it was a free Facebook post, they're always going to do that.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#423

Post by makapuf » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 10:23 PM UTC

sphuff wrote: post #365

anoncake wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a product can't be sustained by word of mouth, it's because it doesn't fill a need that wasn't artificially created by advertising. These products shouldn't exist.

I don't think that's necessarily true. If you and I both enjoy escape rooms, but we aren't friends/don't have a way of contacting each other about it, one of us won't hear about something that would bring us value. Good advertising would take out the roll of the dice that comes with social networks.

Advertising is not information. If i like invite rooms I can search for in best escape rooms.com and find what other people are saying on this forum. Has worked before, can work. Hosting prices for those can be low.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#424

Post by lotsofpulp » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 10:23 PM UTC

waterhouse wrote: post #382

skummetmaelk wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole idea behind insurance is that the unlucky ones who require more care than average have their costs covered by those who require less than average. Taxpayer funding systems are literally the same thing. Yes you can get cheaper premiums by living healthy, but how far do you want to go? Are you going to let your insurance company log everything you eat and how many steps you walk every day? Seems much easier t…

When I got my driver's license at age 17 (or possibly the learner's permit? I forget), we learned that the car insurance company would reduce the premium for me if we regularly submitted them some kind of proof that I was getting good grades. It's possible this was some kind of "public-service program to encourage desired behavior", but I suspect that at least part of why they did it was because straight-A students a…

This already happens, health insurance plans and employers give rebates in exchange for proof of gym visits/daily steps/gym membership.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#425

Post by kyruzic » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 10:26 PM UTC

dooglius wrote: post #189

kyruzic wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each of those companies has a FOSS competitor that does not rely on advertising money yet still exists.

There's a FOSS competitor to Google?

Yes. There is plenty.

One company that does exactly the same things? No.

Companies that do part of what Google does? Absolutely, duckduckgo for search, countless email services to replace gmail, openstreetmaps to replace gmaps, the list goes on.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#426

Post by kspacewalk2 » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 10:26 PM UTC

anoncake wrote: post #325

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that necessarily so? Maybe some products inherently can't be sustained by word of mouth, and in a world without widespread commercial advertising they wouldn't exist at all.

If a product can't be sustained by word of mouth, it's because it doesn't fill a need that wasn't artificially created by advertising. These products shouldn't exist.

Also, plenty of useless junk is peddled through "word of mouth" (MLM, anyone?). Fake reviews, paid word of mouth - banning ads won't ban marketing, it will just force marketers to change tactics to ones that aren't clearly better for customers/consumers. Maybe much worse.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#427

Post by buboard » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 10:26 PM UTC

rabidrat wrote: post #411

buboard wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because it's like targeted advertising: Now that they know you 're looking for food, they can make the advertisement relevant. It would sound worse if they said "No but would you like a pair of sandals"

Advertising is understood to be push and broadcast (or at least multicast) communication. If I initiate the communication, that is not advertising. If it is targeted to an audience of one, that is not advertising. The OP was lamenting the ubiquity and tactics of abusing broadcast media to manipulate consumers en masse. I'm taking a wild guess here that the OP would not put consumer-initiated communication into the bi…

OP also mentions targeted online advertising which is central to the current debate and has even led to specific legislation. That is targeted to an audience of one, and is initiated by the person herself, by visiting the website.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#428

Post by amelius » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 10:26 PM UTC

southerndrift wrote: post #235

cousin_it wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some advertising, like Superbowl ads, does establish brand trust - because you know a fly-by-night company couldn't afford a Superbowl ad. But targeted advertising, which is the whole point of adtech, cannot do that - because you never know if it was shown to a million people or just you.

It works like this but I still don't understand why people trust a company that has the resources to buy a Superbowl ad. If they can afford that ad they must charge their customers more than needed. In other words, the product is more expensive than necessary and the brand isn't offering the best possible value. The brand is signalling that they have convinced many people, or otherwise, they couldn't afford that ad.…

> The brand is signalling that they have convinced many people, or otherwise, they couldn't afford that ad.

Or they just convinced a bunch of investors. See e.g. Uber.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#429

Post by dwaltrip » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 10:27 PM UTC

ameister14 wrote: post #388

picometer wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, I think the author addresses this via the "cancer" metaphor: > It's a malignant mutation of an idea that efficient markets need a way to connect goods and services with people wanting to buy them. > Over time, it became increasingly manipulative and dishonest. It also became more effective. In the process, it grew to consume a significant amount of resources of every company on the planet. I interpre…

Yeah, the problem with that is it's a completely flawed premise. "It's a malignant mutation of an idea that efficient markets need a way to connect goods and services with people wanting to buy them." No, it isn't. It's an expansion of the idea that people are more likely to buy things they have heard of. If it was just to connect people with what they already want to buy, there would be no product development, no pr…

You are being a bit pedantic and misdirectional with that first quote. It's not an important thesis of the article that people already know about the products ahead of time.

In no way have you demonstrated a "completely flawed premise".

> It's been dishonest since the start

How is it a rebuttal to the say that advertising was always dishonest and manipulative...?

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#430

Post by krapp » Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 10:27 PM UTC

cameronbrown wrote: post #345

krapp wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Maybe some products inherently can't be sustained by word of mouth, and in a world without widespread commercial advertising they wouldn't exist at all. Maybe those products shouldn't exist, then. Just because someone has an idea or wants to sell yet another iteration on an existing product or service, doesn't mean they deserve to. Maybe advertising allows markets to be far more diverse and saturated than they shoul…

Don't be so reductionist. Someone could find this escape room via a search ad, have a blast and tell all of her friends and none of them may never choose to do the same. And an escape room experience isn't something you can easily bring people back for - you need to find new customers every single time. I suppose a good way that could make word of mouth work is to create two experiences and recommend the other in an…

>Someone could find this escape room via a search ad, have a blast and tell all of her friends and none of them may never choose to do the same.

And they could ignore the ads, too, which most people probably will because it's not that common a thing to want to do. But at least word of mouth can be expected to be reasonably accurate. If this escape room were terrible, the word of mouth would be terrible, but the advertising for it would never reflect that.

>And an escape room experience isn't something you can easily bring people back for - you need to find new customers every single time.

Maybe that makes it a bad business model?

>Now I'll grant that old school banner ads aren't worth much and we'd probably be better off without them.

I'll be honest, if I had to choose, I'd prefer old school banner ads. Get rid of modals, pop-ups, ads in video, javascript tracking, and just give me a banner with a link, or even just text. Something that doesn't intrude on the content.