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What if we made advertising illegal?

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Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#541

Post by bdangubic »

sapphicsnail wrote: post #519
dangus wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am 50 and I can’t recall more than 3 ads between these three companies. especially apple… ads may get you first X customers but the reason tide/apple/cc are dominant is because they made shit that everyone wants.

coca cola is such a ridiculous product that there isn’t a situation/place/… on the planet where asking for one is odd. you can be in 876 star michelin seven-years-long-wait list restaurant as well as nastiest rats-on-your-should shithole and asking for coke would be the most normal thing

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#542

Post by wat10000 »

mindwok wrote: post #526
wat10000 wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Many people, otherwise advertising wouldn’t work at all and the industry wouldn’t exist. Even if you hear it via some other source, they may have heard of it via some form of advertising.

That doesn’t follow. Most advertising exists to make you more likely to buy the product, not merely to inform you that it exists.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#544

Post by freeamz »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #358
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…

> imagine a world without advertising I can't because a world with magic and world peace is more realistic and believable. It's impossible. How do you even define advertising? If you define it conservatively, then advertising will skirt through the loopholes. If you define it liberally, then you have an unfair, authoritarian system that will definitely be selectively enforced against political enemies. And in all cas…

I don't know about 'advertising', but Bahai don't allow campaigning when running for leadership position. I would imagine it would be some where along line of that. It encourage action speakers louder than words.

With all the modern techniques (used by neurosciences) in the modern advertising is pretty all entrainment and brain washing at this point any way. So no harm in making all that illegal. I'm pretty ok with a world with no advertising, and just function by word of mouth and network of trust.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#545

Post by grues-dinner »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #532
grues-dinner wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I'd rather cap salaries than company sizes. The logistics of certain industries may naturally require more manpower than others and put them at a disadvantage. But someone earning $10m a year while their workers are on food stamps is unacceptable. Having a dynamic limit of total comp would mean they either take less money and put it into the company, or raise the wages of those employees.

Sure it's just a thought experiment.

But even in the strict context of the experiment for very heavy industry, like a steel mill or chip fab, they could be co-operatively owned in whole or by parts.

You could also extend the experiment to allow capital assets to be discounted, or allow worker-owned shares to be discounted. So you can get big, but only by building or by sharing, respectively.

Obviously the big industries today would not be possible as they are structured. But what would we get instead? Would the co-operative overhead kill efficiency dead, or would the dynamism in the system produce higher overall efficiency and better worker outcomes than behemoths hoarding resources and hoovering up competition? And if no one can be worth over 100 million (say), what would that do to the lobbying and deal-making system at the higher levels? One 10-billionaire would have be be replaced by 100 people.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#546

Post by [deleted] »

Toorkit wrote: post #443
stego-tech wrote: post #234

Just from the headline alone: oh please dear god yes . The internet became usable after implementing the Pi-Hole. So much noise, so much wasted bandwidth, so many unnecessary lookups, gone with a Raspberry Pi and a few packages. While other commenters are getting into the technical weeds of things, the reality is that the OP is right. Ads don’t inform, they manipulate. They’re an abusive forced-marriage that we canno…

I can still remember ads on TV from when I was a kid. Mind worms, embedded deep. And it makes me angry.

[deleted]

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#547

Post by mixmastamyk »

Toorkit wrote: post #443
stego-tech wrote: post #234

Just from the headline alone: oh please dear god yes . The internet became usable after implementing the Pi-Hole. So much noise, so much wasted bandwidth, so many unnecessary lookups, gone with a Raspberry Pi and a few packages. While other commenters are getting into the technical weeds of things, the reality is that the OP is right. Ads don’t inform, they manipulate. They’re an abusive forced-marriage that we canno…

I can still remember ads on TV from when I was a kid. Mind worms, embedded deep. And it makes me angry.

Inflamed hemorrhoidal tissue

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#548

Post by etempleton »

People will hate me for saying this, but when people want to ban advertising they fail to realize how much utility they actually get from advertising when it is done in a straightforward, ethical way. At the core, advertising and advertisements are a way to inform potential customers of a product or service that they might like. A few points for consideration:

1. You probably only know about half the things you like, enjoy, and use because of advertising. Did you see a trailer for a movie on YouTube you wanted to watch? That is an ad for a movie. Did you get a demo disc for a new band at a party or club in the 90s? That is an ad. Did you see the concert lineup poster? Ad. No one complains when advertising is done well and provides utility.

2. Ads subsidize things you enjoy. Browsers, search engines, television, your tv, most websites, are all subsidized through advertising. You can say would prefer to just pay full price for it and avoid the ads, but most people clearly would not like to when given the option.

3. What even is an ad? What is the line? Are store signs an ad? Are movie trailers? Defining what an ad is and isn’t is messy and a bit silly.

4. The alternative may be worse. What happens when traditional ads stop working? Businesses still need to get their message out, so what do they do? They hire YouTubers to play talk positively about their product, they wine and dine journalists and publications for favorable coverage, which becomes easy because without ads they are hurting for revenue. If ads were banned this would get worse.

It is nice to opine about a utopia without ads, and believe me, I often do, but the reality is advertising has been around for thousands of years and integral to how business and even society works.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#549

Post by twoodfin »

wskish wrote: post #506
SoftTalker wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fantasy it sounds nice but it immediately hits the wall of the 1st amendment.

Amplified messaging from corporations is not the same as the free speech of individuals. Just as we disallow advertising for cigarettes and hard liquor on TV, a democratic society should be free to select other classes of messages that corporations are not permitted to amplify into public spaces.

Hard liquor ads are all over (e.g.) broadcasts of NFL games.

Cigarette advertising “bans” are not legislated, IIRC, but a result of the various consolidated settlements of the 1990s-era lawsuits against the tobacco companies. They’re essentially voluntary, and it’s not obvious that a genuine ban would survive constitutional scrutiny. It might: Commercial speech is among the least protected forms of speech.

But at some point a line is crossed: Painting “Read the New York Times” on the side of a barn you own is bread & butter freedom of expression.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#550

Post by rayiner »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #358
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…

> imagine a world without advertising I can't because a world with magic and world peace is more realistic and believable. It's impossible. How do you even define advertising? If you define it conservatively, then advertising will skirt through the loopholes. If you define it liberally, then you have an unfair, authoritarian system that will definitely be selectively enforced against political enemies. And in all cas…

> And in all cases, you are self-imposing a restriction that will give other nations an economic advantage and jeopardizing long-term sovereignty.

Does advertising confer an economic advantage?

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