What if we made advertising illegal? • Hacker News Board

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#581

Post by guerrilla » Sun, Apr 06, 2025, 4:44 AM UTC

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…

This is just the nirvana fallacy. We need to do our best.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#582

Post by theamk » Sun, Apr 06, 2025, 4:44 AM UTC

YurgenJurgensen wrote: post #223

amarant wrote: post #104

I had this idea before, but thinking about it, you very soon run into some pretty uncomfortable tradeoffs. The internet would change fundamentally. The article lists social networks as things that would disappear, and good riddance, but we'd also lose (free) search engines. Further, I'd argue that some forms of advertising are actually desirable. If I'm planning a vacation abroad, and want to make a reservation at a…

Already solved elsewhere in the thread: Ban unsolicited advertising. Product recommendations in places where the consumer is explicitly visiting to get product recommendations are not unsolicited.

Can product recommendation sites place a funny video on their website, unrelated to products, just so readers can have a little rest while doing all this product comparison?

Can product recommendation sites _pay_ a video creator to create a funny video for their website? It's a win-win for everyone, right? Product recommendation website gets more visitors, popular creator gets money, and visitors get to see a funny video from popular creator.

If you allow ads on product recommendation websites, most entertainment websites will declare themselves "product recommendation".

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#583

Post by anovikov » Sun, Apr 06, 2025, 4:45 AM UTC

It will give enormous power to the monopolies. Because you'll no longer be able to advertise your product, but search on marketplaces will still be legal right? That means, Amazon, Alibaba etc. will have an absolute chokehold on everyone who sells things.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#584

Post by theamk » Sun, Apr 06, 2025, 4:47 AM UTC

Ukv wrote: post #231

senderista wrote: post #189

So some of the most critical public goods of our age, which are currently mostly ad-funded, like web search, video hosting, email hosting, smartphone navigation, etc. would become publicly funded? Great, I'd like to live in that world too. But this article says nothing about how to get there (actually it considers the demise of Google et al to be an argument in favor without even considering the fact that in the abse…

I'd claim services being ad-funded is not dissimilar from being funded by a JS crypto miner - which is to say while it does move money to that service, it's on net a waste of resources and average affordability would be better without it. For instead of your ISP spending 20% of their resources advertising (because otherwise they'd lose market share to ISPs that are advertising), they could likely offer email hosting…

ISPs, at least in the US, already offer free email hosting.. they used to offer basic web hosting too, not sure if that's still the case.

Using those is worst idea ever. ISPs are all horrible, and the only good thing is you can switch to the other one. The last thing you want is to tie your email/website, something you can't easily change, to them.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#585

Post by noqc » Sun, Apr 06, 2025, 4:48 AM UTC

I say this shit all the time.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#586

Post by Ferret7446 » Sun, Apr 06, 2025, 4:49 AM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #375

Ferret7446 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> that will give other nations an economic advantage and jeopardizing long-term sovereignty. What? How? Advertising isn't a good or service. About the only way I could see it economically being damaging is if you subscribe to the "broken windows" theory of economics.

If advertising isn't a service, why do so many people pay for this, uh, "non-service"?

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#587

Post by nazgul17 » Sun, Apr 06, 2025, 4:50 AM UTC

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…

Perhaps just banning algorithmic advertising would be enough?

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#588

Post by noqc » Sun, Apr 06, 2025, 4:50 AM UTC

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…

It's actually really easy, you're not allowed to be compensated for your speech. It's free.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#589

Post by guy234 » Sun, Apr 06, 2025, 4:50 AM UTC

fmxsh wrote: post #579

Isn't this article advertisement by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)? (edit: I have actually been thinking in similar terms as the article, but I do think the article is optimistic and utopian, as if a good intuition would be enough to prevent the very same forces from exploring the reform Filtering visitors by fingerprint of the browser (cloud flare and palemoon) won't stop bots, but creates a market for more sophi…

what

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#590

Post by molybdenum_plus » Sun, Apr 06, 2025, 4:52 AM UTC

I really dislike the impulse to ban things we don't like.

Of course, a ban on advertising will never happen, because it's very useful to some people. I'm more concerned with the general pattern of thinking that goes:

1. I greatly dislike thing and think thing is bad. 2. Thing should therefore be illegal.

We should be less eager to use the power of law to mold the world to our preferences. It should be a solemn undertaking to use the law! It's an instrument of coercive power and should really be held in reserve as much as possible. Otherwise, we're all just petty tyrants sniping one another for minor transgressions.

There are many things that are very bad that nonetheless must be legal in a free society! I realize this is a uniquely American right, but I nonetheless believe "hate speech" must remain legal. It is bad, yes. I do not like it. I really wish it didn't happen. However, it is markedly less bad than entrusting some byzantine bureaucracy or benevolent dictator to adjudicate the meaning of hate speech. I greatly prefer a world with hate speech to one in which we apply legal authority to eliminate hate speech.