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What if we made advertising illegal?

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Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#511

Post by jcotton42 »

freetime2 wrote: post #291

The biggest TV event of the year in the US is the Super Bowl, and a big part of the event that people look forward to is advertising. Ad spots during the Super Bowl are famously expensive (like millions of dollars for a 30 second ad), and advertisers try really hard to make funny or memorable ads. There are lots people who don’t care about football and watch just to see the ads. The best ads and brands are an iconic…

I'd argue that people look forward to the Super Bowl ads specifically because they're clever/funny, and not at all because they're ads. You could replace them with non-advertising skits and they would have the same draw.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#512

Post by Ray20 »

renewiltord wrote: post #52
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…

>If someone mentions it to someone else, that alone should be grounds to shutter your company.

I don't agree. It should depend on whether such a mention leads to promotion of the product. We are not barbarians to limit freedom of speech.

After any mention of a product by its user, a court should be held to decide whether this mention was advertising. Because even though the user received a benefit from purchasing the product from the company (otherwise he would not have bought it and would not have become a user), advertising also implies promotion, so the court must first determine whether this mention was made in such a way that it could potentially induce the purchase of the product by other people, and only then close the company.

And it doesn't even have to be a mention. Advertising is really mean, like a couple of days ago my girlfriend ate a pudding right in front of me. And it was the last pudding, and she ate it so well that I wanted one too. And you'll never guess what I bought at the store today! Yes, that same pudding. Unfortunately, we are vulnerable to advertising even when we are fully aware of its destructive nature.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#513

Post by toofy »

gamblor956 wrote: post #473
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you can do relatively easily is to control the physical format of advertising. For example, consider how rare "billboards" are outside of the USA. Or towns in various places that prohibit signage that is not in the same plane as the edge of the building (i.e. no sticky-outy signs). Or for that matter, consider Berlin, which has banned all non-cultural advertising on public transportation. Yes, there's some edge…

I saw plenty of billboards in London and Paris last summer. Where is this magical place in the world that has lots of people but no billboards?

honolulu, well all of hawaii actually.

something like 80+ percent of texas cities ban them or are phasing them out with heavy new restrictions.

for example, in dallas, if you want a new billboard, you have to tear down 3. and new ones have placement and size restrictions.

houston is no longer allowing any new off premises signage including billboards. the only way to erect a new billboard is if it passes permitting and the company tears down one of their old ones.

and like i said, like 80% of texas towns across the state have heavy restrictions on new or outright ban them.

santa fe effectively has a ban on all off premises advertising which obviously includes billboards.

billboard are banned on highways in the entire country of Norway, including urban/suburban highways.

the entire state of vermont.

the entire state of maine, including cities.

all of washington dc, including georgetown.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#514

Post by grues-dinner »

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.

While we're at radical thought experiments combine that with "what if any entity worth over 100 million (insert arbitrary limit here, perhaps what if it was based on an multiple of average employee salary) was disallowed".

And, in fact, if the maximum company size were limited, and thus the marketplace wasn't a swimming pool full of whales, but instead full of a much larger number of a broader mix of smaller fish, what would advertising look like then?

For example, large categories of industry would have to change hugely into cooperative non-owning groups of smaller companies. Would they still have the same advertising dominance, or would the churn within the groups break things up?

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#515

Post by duped »

wskish wrote: post #508

I think about this a lot. Consider the difference between the tidy signage of Tokyo versus the pell-mell streetfronts of Hong Hong. Societies should be able to choose how businesses impinge the public space.

Where I live this is hyper local. Some municipalities are extremely strict on ads (to the point of fining _churches_ over signage on their property) and some are overrun with billboards and ads on every corner and bench.

I don't think this is as much as a "societies choose" as "some societies have no choice." The municipality I'm in now struggles with property tax revenues and has to stoop to what I'd call predatory revenue streams (gambling, ads, etc) to make up the difference. And it creates a feedback loop.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#516

Post by Henchman21 »

shadowgovt wrote: post #435
Henchman21 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is precisely the sort of statement that derails the discussion and makes it impossible to even have. I imagine there’s a name for this sort of thing, perhaps some exquisitely long German word? So lets do this: ban all ads in print, video, and in-public. Make the fine so high that you’re going to have to declare bankruptcy and close up shop. Or just straight up revoke corporate charters. There’s your line. I’m ha…

One man's propaganda is another man's truth-to-power. There are dangerous consequences to handing the government the authority to ban public communication (even about mouthwash brands) without very careful scrutiny. Imagine if you couldn't advertise energy alternatives because oil and gas came first and, with advertising banned, we can't even talk about the relative merits of installing solar vs. buying coal-made gri…

Yep, I hadn't considered things from this perspective at all. Thank you!

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#517

Post by thayne »

imiric wrote: post #127
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…

We don't need to go into absurd discussions in order to prevent 99% of the harm that comes from modern advertising. The line is clear: is money being exchanged in order to promote a product? That's advertising. Someone I know mentioning a product because they want to recommend it to me? Not advertising. Giving out "free" samples? Presumably someone is being paid to do that, so advertising. We can later quibble about…

> The line is clear: is money being exchanged in order to promote a product? That's advertising.

So that would exclude:

- listing your house, or car in the classifieds

- buying a sign for your business (ad discussed in other posts)

- buying a garage sale sign

- buying a for sale sign, or flyers for your house for sale

- paying a realtor to sell your house

- paying a reporter or professional reviewer to write a review. Even if they are paid by a newspaper/magazine/consumer report site, money exchanged hands for something that promotes a product.

- distributing a catalog

- paying a cloud provider or VPS provider or website hosting service to host a website that promotes your product

Also, what exactly constitutes a "product"? Does a service count? If not, that is a pretty big loophole. What about a job position? Or someone looking for employment?

And finally, advertisement in some form is kind of important for making customers aware your product exists. Word of mouth isn't very effective if you don't have any customers to begin with. I would expect removing all advertising to have a chilling effect on innovation and new businesses.

To be clear, I think the current advertising environment is terrible, and unhealthy, and needs to be fixed. But I think that removing all advertisement would have some negative ramifications, especially if the definition of an ad is too simplistic.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#518

Post by disambiguation »

What's really interesting about this is that it's not just about advertising, but rather several deeper issues that all intersect with it.

* the pervasive tracking of data and serving targeted ads without consent.

* the addictive algorithms engineered to keep users engaged in the feedback loop.

* the machinery being used beyond commercial purposes - influencing opinions, manufacturing consent, and sometimes being hijacked by bad actors.

Not to mention the philosophical and psychological implications. What does democracy mean when elections come down to who spent the most on Ads? What's the merit of capitalism if consumers can be brain washed?

Like most here, I have a vendetta against Ad-tech and go to great lengths to keep ads out of my life (i highly recommend opnSense - Blocking ads across the whole home network is pure bliss).

But should they be illegal?

Questions of what constitutes an ad, how to enforce such a rule, and my personal opinion aside: I don't think its inherently wrong for a company to promote their products. I do, however, believe that all of the above points - data tracking, addictive algorithms, non-commercial ads - are bad and should be illegal. Outlawing all of those practices would do a great deal to restoring balance to advertising and the web.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#519

Post by sapphicsnail »

dangus wrote: post #442
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…

Let's talk about the modern world then. You want to get away from the grind of working for someone else and sustain yourself on your own. Perhaps you could turn into a subsistence farmer making every home product you own on your own or in a small commune, or perhaps you and a group of employees could buy your existing employer. But the other more realistic method is that you would start your own business so you no lo…

> People would only know brands like Coca-Cola, Tide, and Apple, the brands they knew about the day the ads shut off.

I wouldn't be surprised if these brands are so dominant because they can afford to flood the country with ads.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#520

Post by milesrout »

wat10000 wrote: post #413
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.

Yes, happens often. Plus all the products that have been recommended by (a friend that became aware of them through)+ advertising. And all the products that only exist because of advertising.

Also: sales. I have bought things in sales that I would not have bought otherwise (because its value to me is higher than the sale price but lower than the normal price) where I was only aware of the sales from ads.

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