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What if we made advertising illegal?

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Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#71

Post by okr »

lukev wrote: post #40
hedayet wrote: post #14

Advertising has consequences, and I’m not a big fan of it, but it’s also a necessary evil. It’s easy to dismiss advertising as just a profit engine for ad platforms, but that’s only part of the picture. At its best, advertising plays a meaningful role in solution and product discovery, especially for new or niche offerings that users wouldn’t encounter otherwise. It also promotes fairer market competition by giving s…

I disagree. Advertising is a zero-sum game. If nobody advertised, every solution would be equally discoverable via search and word-of-mouth. It's only when some actors start advertising that the others must as well, so they don't fall behind. And so billions of dollars are spent that could have gone to making better products. It's basically the prisoner's dilemma at scale.

So, if no one competed to get ahead of competitors, by making better or cheaper products and to grab the available marketshare, we would just have better and cheaper products without it? Sounds flawed to me.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#72

Post by gibbitz »

bofadeez wrote: post #15

This is free speech. It's not open for discussion. Our right to free speech is not granted by anyone's consent or by government decree. It preexists the state and cannot be taken away. We hold this truth to be self-evident. We are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights. If any government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.

Someone else made the point that ads cost money, so this isn't about free speech. I guess making advertising free would be the same as banning it since it exists to be sold.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#73

Post by doctorpangloss »

wood_spirit wrote: post #16
daedrdev wrote: post #6

This seems to focus on online advertising. The question is how would you pay for many things on the internet?

I remember fondly the early internet which was full of hobby sites and forums and niche link rings. This was an innocent better time where the internet was full of small scale creativity and sharing and mostly kindness.

Ha ha, so your answer is, everything that advertising pays for, which is like 99% of the internet usage today, would go away.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#74

Post by hfgjbcgjbvg »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #50
UncleEntity wrote: post #30

Ok... First, it is 100% free speech. Second, the government isn't allowed to make laws prohibiting the exercise of free speech based on the content of said speech. Nor can it take actions which are arbitrary or capricious. Third, restrictions on free speech MUST fulfill some overriding public good like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater or words meant to incite violence. Slander, libel, &etc. Fourth, why is it even…

> First, it is 100% free speech. It's speech for sure. > Second, the government isn't allowed to make laws prohibiting the exercise of free speech based on the content of said speech. Nor can it take actions which are arbitrary or capricious. Except that they can and do, as you outline below. All laws are arbitrary. > Third, restrictions on free speech MUST fulfill some overriding public good like yelling "fire" in a…

> It's speech for sure.

Good point. It’s specifically paid speech that’s the problem.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#75

Post by echoangle »

lukev wrote: post #40
hedayet wrote: post #14

Advertising has consequences, and I’m not a big fan of it, but it’s also a necessary evil. It’s easy to dismiss advertising as just a profit engine for ad platforms, but that’s only part of the picture. At its best, advertising plays a meaningful role in solution and product discovery, especially for new or niche offerings that users wouldn’t encounter otherwise. It also promotes fairer market competition by giving s…

I disagree. Advertising is a zero-sum game. If nobody advertised, every solution would be equally discoverable via search and word-of-mouth. It's only when some actors start advertising that the others must as well, so they don't fall behind. And so billions of dollars are spent that could have gone to making better products. It's basically the prisoner's dilemma at scale.

I disagree, one component of advertising is discovering things you didn’t even know existed. Having to actively look stuff like that up would be much harder.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#77

Post by hedayet »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #41
hedayet wrote: post #14

Advertising has consequences, and I’m not a big fan of it, but it’s also a necessary evil. It’s easy to dismiss advertising as just a profit engine for ad platforms, but that’s only part of the picture. At its best, advertising plays a meaningful role in solution and product discovery, especially for new or niche offerings that users wouldn’t encounter otherwise. It also promotes fairer market competition by giving s…

> It also promotes fairer market competition by giving smaller players a shot at visibility, That's what they said about patents, and so far it just means players with more money buy up more patents. Do they not buy up more advertising too? Coca-Cola and Google spend huge amounts on advertising just to make people feel okay with the amount of control they have over everything

> That's what they said about patents, and so far it just means players with more money buy up more patents.

That's a bit of a strawman argument.

> ...Coca-Cola and Google spend huge amounts on advertising just to make people feel okay with the amount of control they have over everything.

I agree - some reform is necessary. The current system often exacerbates the imbalance, but completely dismissing advertising ignores its potential role in leveling the playing field for smaller players when done responsibly.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#78

Post by conqrr »

A lot of corporate environment is perception manipulation. I feel it borrows a lot from the general public perception manipulation that companies and governments do which is through ads and media. There needs to be a better way to go about these things as it affects everything. Skills are less values these days, at least in Big tech, compared to perception manipulation.
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