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Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

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Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#541

Post by traviscj »

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…

I’m much more cynical:

1. It was probably a tax write off.

2. It was probably also both a community service project AND a reflection of lower expected insurance payout.

3. Maybe the straight-A students are correlated with insurance payers that would rather pay the repair known 1-off payment (or skip doing anything at all) vs the unknown recurring increase in insurance payments?

(Source: drove a dented-up pickup for over a year after a short romp along/into an orchard)

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#542

Post by remeq »

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…

"we'd have billions of dollars [1] to spend on something useful." - If companies stopped advertising tomorrow the people doing those ads wouldn't go building space rockets.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#543

Post by _nalply »

remeq wrote: post #542
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…

"we'd have billions of dollars [1] to spend on something useful." - If companies stopped advertising tomorrow the people doing those ads wouldn't go building space rockets.

But Coke could be sold for less.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#544

Post by TeMPOraL »

cameronbrown wrote: post #458
TeMPOraL wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the upside of the crapton of billboards I pass daily, or the flashing, potentially malware-inducing garbage I would see everywhere on the Internet if I turned my ad blocker. Advertising has ridiculous externalities; this is what makes it similar to the toxic waste scenario.

That's because companies have abused the ecosystem and created all this garbage. The irony is lost on them that they're going to be less profitable because they've devalued ads so much. I truly believe we can find an equilibrium which works.

I believe we can find an equilibrium that works too, and that it starts with rolling back almost all advertising "innovation" of the last 100 years.

You'll note the game-theoretical mechanics at play here. If your competitors use garbage advertising, you can't not use it and hope to compete (much like if your competitor is dumping toxic waste to a river, they have advantage over you who tries to safely dispose of it). If one of your competitors invents even more garbagy way of advertising and gains a temporary advantage, everyone will follow suit and the advantage will be cancelled out.

This suggests that simply making it not possible (technically or legally) to engage in garbage advertising won't hurt companies much, and might even be beneficial - companies will still engage in the same competition, but at a cheaper and less invasive level.

There's an anecdote about tobacco companies that I still need to find a proper citation for, but it goes like this: tobacco companies were apparently happy about legal restrictions on advertising, because it was applied to everyone equally, so no one ended up relatively worse off, but now they didn't have to spend so much on advertising anymore.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#545

Post by TeMPOraL »

cameronbrown wrote: post #466
TeMPOraL wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't scream. You talk to people. They talk to other people. If your message is worth it, it'll organically reach those who'd benefit from it. Also, you could post your message in places where people interested in the kind of problems you're solving come to look for solutions. Trade shows, product catalogs, storefronts, and their on-line equivalents. > don't pretend they'd survive without ads I don't see why Face…

But that's the problem. Businesses are always going to scream about their product, there's no easy way to put restrictions on that and still have a free market. Remove advertising and incumbents have all the advantage. Word of mouth is powerful, but it can't be done alone. > Trade shows, product catalogs, storefronts, and their on-line equivalents. These are all advertisements, just a different type.

> These are all advertisements, just a different type.

Yes. That difference of type is what makes them ethical and not annoying.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#546

Post by TeMPOraL »

cameronbrown wrote: post #439
krapp wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 adver…

> Maybe that makes it a bad business model? Maybe it is. But I'd argue having something is better than not having it.

Here's an alternative. All escape rooms need a steady stream of new visitors, so they have a good incentive to cross-promote. Hang a "if you've liked this room, you might enjoy" board by the exit, filled with flyers for other escape rooms in the area, and ask those other escape rooms to put your flyers on their "escape-room-ring" boards.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#547

Post by yoz-y »

necovek wrote: post #314
dwild wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I would disagree with the proposition that "most ads [aren't] about manipulation" (especially if we are talking about "most exposure time" rather than majority of ads being created regardless of the number of times they've been viewed). Of course, I don't have data to prove my statement, but I doubt you have any to prove yours either. And without ads and that "great tutorial", maybe you'd be something of greater valu…

> Note that the original article does not complain about informative ads, but about manipulative ones.

It’s funny because the title would suggest that “all ads are one of the worst things that happened to humanity”. So it’s a click bait headline = manipulative ad. Maybe without a different title nobody would read the article.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#548

Post by dang »

joantorres wrote: post #535

The real cancer on society are religions. Not only they are totally useless, but they have been obstructing critical thinking and the progress of sciencific development for thousands of years.

We don't want religious flamewars on HN, so could you please not post like this here?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#549

Post by yoz-y »

skummetmaelk wrote: post #291
dwild wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If the current ad model of the popular search engine(s) was made extinct by law. I would be extremely surprised if search simply disappeared rather than move to a paid model. Who wouldn't pay to have any information in the world reachable in the 30 seconds it takes to craft a query and scan the first page of results? It is a huge competitive advantage.

Nobody ever paid for something like that. If there is anything on the internet people assume it should be free. Taking example of the HN crowd, every time there is a pay walled article people ask for web links, praise outline links and generally complain.

Re: Advertising Is a Cancer on Society

#550

Post by yoz-y »

flukus wrote: post #518
dwild wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think the other user here had a great example with his sister’s escape room. If you want to visit one how would you find it if it’s not on your way to work?
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