481–490 of 657 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just tax sugar.
Small funny story about that. In Finland we do (or did, it might have changed on 2017) tax sugar. Then they added artificial sweeteners and even mineral water under the tax because it’s ”fair” that way. Thus negating the original point.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I moved from Europe to the US I just couldn't believe it. In my home country there is one commercial break during a 2 hour movie. It's a little longer than the breaks in the US, but there is only one. There is also one during a 45minute TV show, and none during a 20minute show. I can't tell you the shock when I started watching American TV. I couldn't believe people were putting up with this.
I wish America would group TV ads together, it would make them much easier to skip and would remove the need for forced cutoffs (you really notice them when watching on non-cable sources)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe there could be a middle ground: keep most of the internet ad-free, but allow users to do explicit "commercial searches" for e.g. vacuum cleaners, or hotels, or fun things to do in their area. Then the escape room would show up there.
You would need to pay for such an ad-free internet in some way, other than being an ad target. This is a critical point of you expect the variety and quality of this ad-free internet to approach what we have now.
I've witnessed the Internet before Web 2.0. Yes I received Viagra spam on my mailbox as well. Amount bought thanks to all of that spam: zero. The marketeer does not care about any second in my life I wasted thanks to their spam. Neither do the assholes who hosted them. And still, that Internet functioned. Of course the bills for the IRC server and Usenet server need to be paid. Usenet access was just part of my monthly dial-up subscription though.
As far as I am concerned the invention of high quality (relatively) search engines and high quality (relatively) fact sources such as Wikipedia as well as high quality, honest reviewers could easily make up for advertising. How is such paid for? Donations and credit card.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a doctor, I'm all for banning soft drinks, recognizing that it probably will never happen. But, the health externalities associated with drinking such beverages should get priced in and be used to offset eventual health complications. This is not easy because no one likes taxes, but you get what you pay for.
As a doctor, I'm all for banning soft drinks, recognizing that it probably will never happen. Just curious, what are some of your hobbies? Things you like to do in your spare time? LOL, looks like some people can see where I'm going with this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish America would group TV ads together, it would make them much easier to skip and would remove the need for forced cutoffs (you really notice them when watching on non-cable sources)
I'd go the other direction: don't group them (a lot of shows already account for / include commercial breaks, so it ain't like they're that disruptive) but make them shorter. The shorter the commercial, the less likely a viewer is to skip them or change the channel, which means more engagement. The ad's subject wins (more engagement), the viewer wins (less ads), the channel wins (more engagement + less supply = more…
Of course. They're all owned by ClearChannel these days, so why should they play more music than ads? What are people going to do, switch to another (ClearChannel) radio station? You might also notice the ads are usually playing at the same time if you switch between stations.
Non-NPR radio is basically just like landlines and cable TV these days. The only people who still use/listen to/watch these things are dinosaurs who haven't moved on to streaming radio (or just buying your own music), cellphones, and streaming movies, so these companies are milking these people for all they're worth.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't have to drink coffee with sugar, and in fact, many people do drink it "black".
You missed the message in my comment. Soda don't have to be too sweet either.
You could buy reduced-sweetness soda I suppose, but I don't know where you're going to find that. Even the boutique brands are very sweet.
You can also buy artificially-sweetened soda, but lots of studies are now showing that crap isn't any healthier for you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We may assume there are fansites for escape rooms available. Such serve as word of mouth advertising, just like reviews do. There is more focus on facts, and the user voluntarily participates (in contrast to all the billboards, online advertising, useless pages in magazines)
A great many potential escape room customers are not looking specifically for escape rooms, they're looking for something fun to do in the area. So, again, no ability to advertise would be a gigantic advantage to established incumbents in the "something fun to do with friends" category of businesses.
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.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does it have to? Coke as a company is responsible for some horrifying effects on the world. Health effects, economic depression in the developing world, ongoing environmental harm. And for what? Sugar water. Not space travel, not energy, not transportation, not safer aircraft or cars, not saving lives, no. For fucking. Sugar. Water. And they're far from the only company burning energy, effort, time and knowledge…
Coke is enjoyable to many, that's a benefit. Air travel and space travel also cause ongoing environmental harm, whose says the benefits of those outweigh the environmental cost? Maybe we should ban them as well. All companies "burn" energy, effort, and time to produce profits, that's pretty much the goal of a company.
True. But would people enjoy it as much if it were priced accordingly to give the workers who made it a living wage? If they had to pay full non-subsidized prices for the corn sugar they use, and to give those workers a living wage as well? In other words, would people enjoy it as much if it was instead of a dollar a bottle, more like four dollars?
And don't even try and shift to a different company. It is not unreasonable to assume that there is ethical compromise involved in purchasing anything from a company Coke's size. Chiquita almost started a war so they could continue exploiting South Americans for cheap bananas.
I take issue with this "well there's no haaaarm" point because there very often IS harm. There is tons of harm if you follow the supply lines back to the developing world where western corporations exploit entire nations for the sake of cheap goods that then are consumed at a break neck pace in the West, far more than they should be, which then even harms THOSE people by making them overweight.
If your company could do actual good in the world by ceasing to exist, then I question why you need to exist in the first place. That's all I'm saying.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because a law has worked really well to stop underage drinking, smoking, and weed. It’s the same consequences. Little Johnny with well connected parents and a judge who doesn’t want to ruin the life of someone “who could be his kid” gets off easy while they expel little Jerome who is just “going to turn out to be a thug anyway.”
The good solution - already practiced in many European countries for alcohol and tobacco - is to punish the store if they sell to a minor, not the kid who buys it.
It also hasn’t stopped kids from getting weed and cigarettes.