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What if we made advertising illegal?

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Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#611

Post by Sparkyte »

Such and interesting thought provoking situation. So much money circulates and thrives off the idea of advertising. The concept of YouTube would cease to exist. Some products would never even get off the ground without some level of advertising.

What constitutes advertising vs marketing?

Does product placement count as advertising or marketing?

Does opening up a pop shop count as advertising or marketing?

So much to this, ultimately we do need to regulate advertisements. But I am not sure we can survive without them.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#612

Post by makapuf »

timewizard wrote: post #331
imiric wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Let's say I have a journal. It costs money to subscribe. It covers a topic that many college students also study. Can I give the school a free copy? Can I give the teachers one? Can I give the students one? Is this advertising? When does the amount of "value" become offensive? > surfacing the dark data broker market and b…

The fact that the boundary can be a bit blurry does not prevent it to be useful. Yes there may be corner cases to thunk about ans that can vary, as with all laws. It's bot perfect but its better than current out of control situation.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#613

Post by ccppurcell »

Does anyone with a brain think ads inform? I'm not sure they ever did. The real issue here is that there's never going to be political will for this. Advertising and propaganda are the same yes. Lobbying is closely related. Banning anything for the good of the people or society is anathema to the current crop of politicians. Even if that wasn't the case, anyone putting this forward as a policy would find themselves running against an extremely well funded opponent with the backing of a lot of the media.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#614

Post by makapuf »

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…

There is a big difference between advertising and information. First, most people are generally not being paid by big energy alternatives to promote it. Of course we can talk about things. What we wouldn't be able is to be paid by someone to have a specific public discourse.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#615

Post by dostick »

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…

> What's frustrating is how the tech community keeps treating the symptoms while ignoring the disease.

If you think deeper, to first principles, it’s clear that disease is capitalism. I am not advocating socialism/communism, but isn’t it strange that capitalism was never reviewed or updated according to new science about anthropology, sociology, and economics? In 100 years, about 100 countries tried it, and not one country can report a harmonious society. It’s always with inequality and suffering.

Every science has new advancements and discoveries, every single one except political sociology. Why is more advanced and modern political economic system never seriously discussed? On what assumption is capitalism still being implemented? It was never working yet still it is referred as something like “word of god” that cannot be argued with.

If this was a situation in an IT company and methodology company uses constant change, it ends in disaster. After about one such cycle, management will be looking into changing processes and choosing something else instead of Agile or Waterfall or whatever is used.

For about 30-40 years now, we produce enough to feed and house everyone. Henry Ford introduced a five-day work week, which should be down to one workday by now. But instead, we got “bullshit jobs,” which are about 50% of employment in unnecessary made-up jobs to keep people occupied (marketing, finance). And still in the AI age, a person who is born now is brainwashed into capitalism and has to find an occupation, study, and work till retirement. Capitalism does not accept you for who you are. It only accepts you if you have some kind of occupation that brings value.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#616

Post by chbkall »

A lot of people have suggested that the idea is in opposition to free speech. The title can be misleading here. The article doesn't talk about banning 'advertising' - it specifically says "Any form of paid and/or third-party advertising would become illegal. Full stop." People can still advertise themselves using different channels.

With so much fake news and data, a lot of content has started to seem like white noise. Maybe this is a direction worth exploring for us as a society.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#617

Post by interludead »

I'm kind of shocked how rare it is to see someone say this out loud. We've normalized advertising to such a ridiculous degree that even questioning it feels like heresy. But yeah, imagine how different the internet (and society) would be if the incentive to manipulate attention just vanished overnight.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#618

Post by interludead »

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…

That line about the mechanical difference between selling sneakers and selling a political ideology being minimal - yep. Once you've seen how the sausage gets made in ad tech, it's hard to unsee it. It really is the same machine, just tuned for different outcomes.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#619

Post by interludead »

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…

But I think part of the article's point is less about banning all forms of spreading the word and more about dismantling the surveillance-driven, hyper-targeted ad economy that's become the default.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#620

Post by ddimitrov »

Some years ago, at the height of the Augmented Reality bubble, I had a hackathon idea about smart sunglasses that would replace any detected poster and billboard with information of your choosing - your favorite art, personal photos, notifications about upcoming alarms.

I am no longer into hackathons, but I would pay good money for such a product. Bonus points if it is styled like Nada's glasses from They Live.

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