What if we made advertising illegal? • Hacker News Board

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#651

Post by barnabee » Sun, Apr 06, 2025, 8:23 AM UTC

exe34 wrote: post #306

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…

I find it hard to imagine. I hate advertising as much as the next guy - I intentionally try to associate negative thoughts with any adverts that interrupt a video I'm watching (I nearly ordered hellofresh after getting a voucher, but they've interrupted my YouTube experience too many times in the past). But how do you separate advertising from product recommendations? Would it only apply if the person doing the recom…

If they are paid and the consumer didn’t ask to see it, either because it’s inserted into the web page / video stream / whatever they are actually trying to consume, OR because because the whole thing has a paid bias or ulterior motive.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#652

Post by markdown » Sun, Apr 06, 2025, 8:24 AM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #386

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…

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…

Billboards are banned in the state of Hawaii.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#653

Post by _diyar » Sun, Apr 06, 2025, 8:27 AM UTC

There's much discussion about what constitutes advertising in the comments, with some dismissing this question as either solved or not crucial. Note however that seriously banning advertising requires a clear definition of it.

My 2 cents: Ban payed advertising online, including banner ads, search ads, and pre-roll / inter-roll ads (e.g. youtube and instagram).

This is a clearly defined market and probably causes a plurality of the negative impact of adverts (especially when connected with the incentive to algorithmically addict users to show them more ads).

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#654

Post by barnabee » Sun, Apr 06, 2025, 8:29 AM UTC

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…

> IMO the idea of removing advertising entirely would essentially entrench the status quo even further.

This doesn’t seem correct to me.

Products would still be searchable, but the wealthiest companies could no longer pay for placement or pay to have their brand name repeated endlessly so it’s on the tip of your tongue but you don’t know why.

People would still talk in their communities and share recommendations.

Reviews (unpaid) would still be a thing.

Markets (real and virtual) where you can compare competing products and make a decision wouldn’t go away.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#655

Post by yunohn » Sun, Apr 06, 2025, 8:29 AM UTC

SecretDreams wrote: post #156

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…

No paid advertising, whether that involves financial compensation, in kind gifts, or something else. There would be no commercial ads online if google received no kickbacks to show ads. There would be no influencers, either. I'd be okay with non-profits and government agencies advertising benevolent things to us, like vaccinations. The only hard part is to develop systems to actually ensure nobody is receiving compen…

Vaccine ads are a great example, in that large parts of the population consider them as fake propaganda. Trump supporters were up in arms against Biden/Dems for promoting vaccines during COVID. With your logic RFK Jr would be very happy!

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#656

Post by barnabee » Sun, Apr 06, 2025, 8:32 AM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #394

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…

> framing advertising and propaganda as essentially the same mechanism - just with different masters. They're not the same mechanism, they're the same thing. Propaganda is advertising one doesn't approve of, and advertising is propaganda that one does approve of. The fine-slicing is the result of people who want to make money doing propaganda attempting to justify themselves. > Try this thought experiment from the ar…

> Advertising has a purpose; it's how I find out what products and services are available, and at what cost.

When I am unable to avoid it (which I’m relatively successful at), it’s how I explicitly decide what to avoid. See an ad, penalise the company.

But yet I have no trouble finding and evaluating products when I actually need something.

Search engines, real and virtual marketplaces, word of mouth, reviews all exist already, and all can work without paid shenanigans.

There’s no need to replace advertising, we can just ban it.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#657

Post by 1oooqooq » Sun, Apr 06, 2025, 8:34 AM UTC

drekipus wrote: post #426

1oooqooq wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sao Paulo, Brazil, made outdoor advertising illegal. That worked out quite well. it was just a gimmick in the end. yeah the city is cleaner, but i doubt there's even the slightest difference in sports betting in sao paulo vs places with outdoors, for example. ...and did the us forbid prescription drugs ads? thats literally all i see on daytime tv.

> I doubt there's even the slightest difference in sports betting. > Yeah the city is cleaner.. Cool. So it has positive effects on the city, without any negative effects on economic outcomes. Cool. I'm in. Let's implement it everywhere

the article discussion is about having impact on addiction and behavior... I'm pointing that while there's profit to be made, trying to ban advertising in one way is futile for that end.

yeah you can make the city pretier or get less banners on your sites, whatever. advertising will still happen.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#658

Post by camgunz » Sun, Apr 06, 2025, 8:34 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…

I see this dynamic in tech all the time:

"We'd like to pay/invest in you tremendous amounts of money to make X more efficient": yes, absolutely we know what X is and we understand scaling it is immensely valuable and fundamentally changes everything.

"We'd like to regulate X, making it safer, and therefore harder or even impossible to do": that's ridiculous, you could always do X, what even is X anyway, don't tread on me, yadda yadda.

It's so transparent to me now, and I've passed this curse onto you.

Nothing else in law works this way. No definition is ironclad. This is what legislators, agencies, and courts are for. We all know this.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#659

Post by yunohn » Sun, Apr 06, 2025, 8:34 AM UTC

BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #644

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…

>is a valid and desirable function No I don’t think so. I would genuinely guess that 97% of the ads I see are irrelevant garbage or, more commonly, bids by products I know to raise awareness to increase the probability of their sale. I discover the vast majority of what I care about through word of mouth and I suspect I’d be fine without ads. There are so many negative externalities that it’s actually ridiculous.

And pray tell how the chain of word of mouth started for that product?

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#660

Post by nullbio » Sun, Apr 06, 2025, 8:39 AM UTC

The issue is that if you ban advertising, we still get advertising, but it'll be done in a way that hides that it is an advertisement. Aka, the internet will be full of bot posts that are thinly veiled ads posing as legitimate inquiry or discussion. That's a worse off scenario. Better the enemy you know.