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What if we made advertising illegal?

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Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#51

Post by lukev »

SteveNuts wrote: post #17
daedrdev wrote: post #6

This seems to focus on online advertising. The question is how would you pay for many things on the internet?

There must be a reason someone hasn't invented a browser plugin for microtransactions on the internet? I'll gladly pay 25 cents to read an article from a news website, but I won't subscribe for a whole year for $25+, especially when there's dozens/hundreds of sites. Obviously credit card transaction fees would be a problem, but that could be mitigated by depositing say $15 at a time and deducting from the balance eac…

This is the great white whale of the internet. A platform for this would clearly be a thing of value, but extremely difficult to do because you need to booststrap a two-sided market in an environment where all the existing established players are incentivized NOT to participate.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#52

Post by renewiltord »

fixprix wrote: post #44

This makes no sense. I build a great product. How the hell am I supposed to tell anyone about it outside of my immediate friends and family? Am I supposed to rely on the network effect to reach an audience? That sounds insane. Capitalism depends on advertising to let people know of the product or service that is more cost effective than existing solutions. The advertising budget is dependent on knowing your product i…

Well, personally, I think you shouldn’t even tell your friends and family. That kind of “native advertising” is ruining human relationships. People should stumble upon your product. If someone mentions it to someone else, that alone should be grounds to shutter your company. Even so-called “catchy domain names” are a deep evil that we didn’t have in the heyday of the US: the ‘70s. Your product should be named exactly what it does and your company should be named as the concatenation of its products.

In this way we can eliminate manipulative marketing and rely purely on quality.

Should parents even be allowed to name children or should the state choose a descriptive name based on their appearance and behaviour? Hard to tell but I think we need to think long and hard about manipulative naming in more than just the corporate sphere.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#53

Post by goatlover »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #36
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the thought piece had one simple answer: Were you paid to say it, with the intent of motivating said person, to buy a product? Though, this piece made me groan with the buzzwords "a micro-awakening of the self." Great way to make me cringe if I send it to someone.

> Were you paid to say it, with the intent of motivating said person, to buy a product? For the waiter, this is probably true.

So we exempt waiters. No one seriously thinks waiters are what the article is about.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#54

Post by hfgjbcgjbvg »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #36
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the thought piece had one simple answer: Were you paid to say it, with the intent of motivating said person, to buy a product? Though, this piece made me groan with the buzzwords "a micro-awakening of the self." Great way to make me cringe if I send it to someone.

> Were you paid to say it, with the intent of motivating said person, to buy a product? For the waiter, this is probably true.

Then illegal. Simple. And I like it tbh

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#55

Post by sejje »

wood_spirit wrote: post #16
daedrdev wrote: post #6

This seems to focus on online advertising. The question is how would you pay for many things on the internet?

I remember fondly the early internet which was full of hobby sites and forums and niche link rings. This was an innocent better time where the internet was full of small scale creativity and sharing and mostly kindness.

The early internet, which I was a part of, and think of fondly, didn't have anywhere near the utility of the modern internet. It was fun to explore, but you couldn't DO much.

I hosted my own site, in my bedroom. I hosted a counter-strike server, too. Comcast hadn't shut hosting down yet.

Anyway, that has nothing to do with online banking, services, security, apps, media. Let's just use youtube--one of the greatest sites of all time, hands down. Huge utility, huge entertainment. Free, via advertising. Would have never happened without it.

There's so, so much trash, webspam, etc on the modern web. I hate it, too. I don't even have warm feelings about youtube anymore. But advertising opened a lot of doors.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#56

Post by wronex »

Some countries (Poland?) has experimented with banning advertising in public spaces. Think bill boards. This has lead to very clean and good looking cities. I don’t think the it’s unreasonable to ban ads in other places too.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#58

Post by AlotOfReading »

Terr_ wrote: post #2

Another approach with overlapping effects is to make companies extremely liable for misuse or mismanagement of personal information. There would still be advertising, and maybe even some personalized advertising, but in many cases they might decide the risk isn't worth it. It would also impact data-brokers and operations that don't strictly rely on direct-to-consumer advertising, like background checks, but credit sc…

I'm extremely skeptical that there's any meaningful reform to be had with liability for misuse. Demonstrating misuse is a substantial legal hurdle that no one is going to litigate in court. Even with severe and proactive enforcement, it'll just incentivize shell companies to act as liability shields.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#59

Post by kcatskcolbdi »

bofadeez wrote: post #15

This is free speech. It's not open for discussion. Our right to free speech is not granted by anyone's consent or by government decree. It preexists the state and cannot be taken away. We hold this truth to be self-evident. We are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights. If any government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.

Of course it's open for discussion. Free speech is not limitless.

You can wax poetically all you want about endowment by the creator, but try saying racial slurs on daytime TV and see how long that lasts.

Advertisement is just another form of speech that can be limited.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#60

Post by kiicia »

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…

There are two ways of trying to achieving goal. One is to start from big picture, think if we even want to do something, then plan how to go there. Second is to start from technicalities and probably immediately go nowhere.

You are starting from technicalities before you even took the moment to actually think of goal is worth it.

If it is worth it and we would indeed be better off - plan how to go there, it may not be easy, but it will be possible this way or another. If it is not worth it after all - just say it, no technicalities needed, redirect time and effort elsewhere.

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