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Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

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Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#511

Post by wpietri »

Aperocky wrote: post #84
wpietri wrote: post #23

He doesn't quite say it by name, but most advertising is a classic arms race. Especially given how the internet now makes information easily available, a great deal of advertising is about manipulating consumers to pick company A's products over those from competitors B, C, and D. This forces those other companies to spend to get and keep customers. It's pure waste. For example, everybody on the planet is now familia…

How do you define "Something useful" though? The advertisement money eventually makes it to Google, broadcasters, sites, TV-channels, sports events and people running those organization in term gets more money to spend on [Potentially useful stuff]. It's not like the money magically vanishes to never be seen again, and business to business transaction like this make the money flow faster instead of slower. Economy is…

This is basically the broken window fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

If I go around smashing windows, I will make money move faster. The people who install replacement windows will have more money to spend. It's not like the money magically vanishes! But it's still a terrible idea, because all this economic activity is based on systemic waste. It's the same for most advertising.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#512

Post by gatherhunterer »

buboard wrote: post #344
gatherhunterer wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of the blog posts found on Hacker News are ads in disguise. They are targeting people who block ads.

How else will you grab the attention of people already locked into their networks and very resistant to change? Small startups dont have enormous budgets to pay google for it

Submit it as a “Show HN” or make the intent clear in the title instead of being duplicitous. Throwing money at the problem and being deceptive are not the only solutions.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#513

Post by cameronbrown »

scarface74 wrote: post #474
cameronbrown wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems most of the contributions are from hardware/distro developers. Recent contributions pin Google at making up about 2% and Facebook at 0.8%. I can imagine they're contributing far more value with their Linux Foundation memberships though. [0] https://regmedia.co.uk/2016/08/26/top_30_linux_contributions...

Fair enough. But, that still means that most Linux contributors are not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts and that they are getting paid for it - not volunteering.

My source only breaks down corporate contributions. Volunteers do make up a significant portion of kernel contributions.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#514

Post by gatherhunterer »

davidivadavid wrote: post #399
gatherhunterer wrote: post #319

Most comments are referring to a claim that the author did not make: that all advertising and the practice of business marketing should be abolished unconditionally.

That's probably because the author uses loaded language, and bases the whole article on an analogy with cancer, which has a slight tendency to evoke the worst kind of crap people can think of and want to entirely get rid of at all costs.

What loaded language? Loaded language appeals to a stereotype, this is just a provocative analogy. The use of an attention-grabbing title does not mean that one should be excused for creating a straw man instead of debating the actual content.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#515

Post by randcraw »

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.

You're describing a commodity. So what's an example of a popular product that no longer differentiates on features/quality yet exists solely due to advertising? ... Actually I'm having a hard time thinking of mature products that DON'T meet that description.

Soft drinks, insurance companies, investment advisors, pretty much all prepared foods, all over-the-counter drugs, shampoo, deodorant, desktop computers, etc, etc -- these are the sources of 95% of ads. Yet the difference among them is almost nonexistent.

The ads for these products don't inform the consumer; they exist only to push the brand into consumer consciousness, a necessary evil because otherwise your company's commodity won't survive competition with other companies's commodity products without fabricating mindshare via by constant repetition of media promotions.

Branded commodities exist at all because advertising has constructed a fantasy around them intended to give consumers a sense of identity, and ultimately, meaning in their lives. Buy this slightly tweaked commodity to become smarter or sexier.

Without ads, 95% of everything we guy will quickly drop by at least 50% to match that of the nameless generic commodity that it is.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#516

Post by t34543 »

yellowapple wrote: post #147
irrational wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We were at a rented condo and my 6 year old told me that paw patrol was broken, she said it kept stopping and starting. I had to go watch it with her before realizing she was talking about advertisements. She had never seen advertisements before (having only ever watched shows like paw patrol on DVDs checked out from the library) and didn't understand what was going on. It was really eye opening for me.

This does give me some hope that future generations will start to see video-interrupting ads (like traditional commercial breaks) as absurd, unusual, disruptive, and annoying.

Can you speculate on what that generation perceives as normal ads?

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#517

Post by randcraw »

andyburke wrote: post #442
Zeklandia wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have to tell people they need something then they don't need it. Escape rooms are an entertainment luxury. When there is essential work that needs to be done (infrastructure, healthcare, education, &c.), it makes sense that it takes psychological manipulation to convince people that what they really need to do with their time and effort is temporary entertainment. If you want more customers, provide something…

Entertainment and relaxation are not unnecessary. Especially in our late capitalist civilizations.

True, but because all ads are spread via media, and interrupt the experience of enjoying that movie, song, paper or magazine or book, the delivery of every ad inevitably lessens your enjoyment of whatever activity they interrupt.

Nobody chooses to watch a TV or radio show that's all ads. Ads are the opposite of entertainment, otherwise we'd tune in Wednesday at 8 PM to watch our favorite ads.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#518

Post by flukus »

dwild wrote: post #265
wpietri wrote: post #23

He doesn't quite say it by name, but most advertising is a classic arms race. Especially given how the internet now makes information easily available, a great deal of advertising is about manipulating consumers to pick company A's products over those from competitors B, C, and D. This forces those other companies to spend to get and keep customers. It's pure waste. For example, everybody on the planet is now familia…

I would have agreed in the past but now that my SO has started an escape room, if your ideal world existed, she would be bankrupt right now. Most ads isn't about manipulation, it's just about getting your attention and reminding you that this product exists. Ads are the only way to reach her market. You could argue that search is a good one too (which is true), but sadly people have trouble paying to watch videos onl…

> Most ads isn't about manipulation, it's just about getting your attention and reminding you that this product exists.

That is manipulation. If they weren't actively thinking about visiting one or actively looking for things to do and your advertising convinced them to do it then you've manipulated them into doing something the otherwise wouldn't have.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#519

Post by randcraw »

SilasX wrote: post #392
n0mad01 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

he also said "health ... associated ... should get priced in" - how about 6€ for a can of coke? people would drink it, but far less.

It still has the same problems, in that people can bootleg it. Just at a smaller scale. Remember, they have low-grade turf wars in NYC over cigarette sales due to the really high taxes.

Cigarettes have cost $6 a pack in the US for over a decade and nobody bootlegs these. Same for beer, at $6-12 for a 6-pack.

Bootlegging is generally a short term response to diminished access. But soon after the controls arise, demand generally shifts elsewhere to less inconvenient alternatives.

I can think of no examples of continuing bootlegging in the US, aside from piracy of media, which is another kettle of fish.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#520

Post by solipsism »

Zeklandia wrote: post #506
solipsism wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All entertainment must be productive? That's what you would decree? Ugh, very free people would want to live in your horrible nanny state.

It's not my decree, it's nature's. The world does not have infinite resources. We have to be careful how we use them. If you cannot live efficiently, you will exhaust your available resources and your lifestyle will die out. Humans have put in a great amount of effort in the last few hundred years to make as many resources as possible available to use, but this only encouraged us to use more. If you want to see how t…

You don't exist to be happy, you exist to survive

Speak for yourself. You exist to survive apparently, and what a meager and sad existence that seems to me. Good thing there's no authority telling us why we exist and we're each free to decide for ourselves.

What would we have accomplished as humans if...

What would we have accomplished if we survive until eternity without being happy?

The world does not have infinite resources. We have to be careful how we use them

"All fun must be productive" doesn't follow from that.

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