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What if we made advertising illegal?

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Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#771

Post by xrortrad »

SoftTalker wrote: post #440
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…

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

It doesn't sound nice. It sounds utterly insane and totalitarian.

There is such a disturbing element of society that seems to want to "save democracy" by any means necessary. By "save democracy" they mean get the election results they want, in other words it has nothing at all to do with democracy.

They just want power.

"We should ban advertising so the people I agree with can have absolute power" is really what these insane people are saying.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#772

Post by SecretDreams »

yunohn wrote: post #655
SecretDreams wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Every good rule had exceptions. Advertising vaccines is fine.

Frankly, we should advertise more education - then maybe we wouldn't have some of our current issues.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#773

Post by SebastianKra »

aucisson_masque wrote: post #671
SebastianKra wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Likewise, advertising on its own at its core is useful: there might be something that adds value to your life that someone else is trying to provide and the only missing link is that you don't know about it. Journalists exist. The best way to learn about new products is through influencers/reviewers/experts in their field. I'd even say its superior, which is why advertising companies ~sponsor~ bribe influencers to…

> The best way to learn about new products is through influencers/reviewers/experts in their field. I'd even say its superior, which is why advertising companies ~sponsor~ bribe influencers to promote their products. In the same sentence, you give a possible solution and the reason why it wouldn't work. Ban ads and companies are going to pay more and more for sponsored content to the point you can't differentiate wha…

I'd expect the law to broadly define an ad as any message, where the author has a conflict of interest.

This would also include down propaganda on social media.

We could then work backwards to define exceptions such as politicians speaking in moderated debates, signage in shops, etc...

Defining this correctly will be difficult, but that's the case with any law. GDPR was watered down, and I'm still glad it's there.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#774

Post by arccy »

adiabatichottub wrote: post #93
SteveNuts wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There must be a reason someone hasn't invented a browser plugin for microtransactions on the internet? I'll gladly pay 25 cents to read an article from a news website, but I won't subscribe for a whole year for $25+, especially when there's dozens/hundreds of sites. Obviously credit card transaction fees would be a problem, but that could be mitigated by depositing say $15 at a time and deducting from the balance eac…

At first I scoffed at this idea, but then I had a tangential thought: what keeps me shopping at Amazon or ebay all the time instead of smaller retailers? It's not product quality or selection, that's for sure. It's mostly the friction of signing up for another site, entering my payment and shipping information, adjusting my mail filters, etc. What would really help would be complete automation of this process, where…

There are integrations like checkout with Amazon, Shop, Google Pay, etc that do this.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#775

Post by lvass »

If ads just vanished, that would be great, but making it illegal ought to do more harm than good. For one, a lot of ad money would be routed to shills, which are far more pernicious and have already infested otherwise great platforms like Reddit. Everything would turn to crap and no adblocker would help you. An ad ban would make every influencer profile instantly worthless, unless they decide to shill, which they're probably already doing anyway.

Also big tech would be incentivized to sell even more user data, as their business would still mostly exist, either via subscriptions, or through the now even more profitable user data market with more expensive targeted shilling.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#776

Post by 627467 »

dash2 wrote: post #682

This idea isn't uncommon because it's beyond the Overton window, it's uncommon because it is silly and unworkable. * Total fantasy to think you wouldn't fall afoul of free speech, both legally (in the US) and morally. In fact, the author touts as a benefit that you'd stop populists being able to talk to their audience. This is destroying the village of liberal democracy in order to save it! * Absolutely zero thought…

> In fact, the author touts as a benefit that you'd stop populists being able to talk to their audience. This is destroying the village of liberal democracy in order to save it!

the irony is the author is using propaganda to spread populist ideas

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#777

Post by [deleted] »

mikestew wrote: post #154
iambateman wrote: post #57

To go halfway to the extreme of this article, I think banning large-scale billboards in my city would make a big difference. It feels like having a calmer public space is more in the public interest than reminding them to drink Miller Lite.

Redmond, WA has a ban on billboards. Locals can see this demonstrated by driving 124th St. and crossing Willows Rd into Kirkland. First thing you’ll see are billboards. Just got back from a trip to Florida. Billboards along every freeway, and 75% of them are personal injury lawyers. If you’re a resident of Redmond, it is an obnoxious contrast.

[deleted]

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#778

Post by photonthug »

There is of course absolutely zero chance of this happening. But I didn't actually expect that amongst people rather than lobbyists/corporations the very idea would actually be considered controversial, subversive or offensive. I'd have brought popcorn if I expected this incredible display of mental gymnastics. I guess I assumed that even people who are forced into the situation where ads are their bread and butter directly or indirectly still know about the damage and think the whole thing is gross. (I've been there and done that myself..)

Now I'm thinking of the "neighborhood beautification projects" in Abbey's Monkeywrench Gang though where the guys light up the cutting torches to cut down any billboards that get too close to the Grand Canyon. The fear of course is that police might drive by, since if you think about it the activity itself is really reversing vandalism more than anything else. Apparently today you would have to worry about mobs of concerned citizens tearing you to pieces for taking away their right to be advertised to? I'm so amazed by the very idea of this I can't even get that disgusted or angry about it. What else are these people up to, how do they live and what else do they think? Like, if the best food was determined by ad budgets, do they wonder what to have for dinner ever, and what's the most gourmet cuisine in that world? Best candidate for the election is the one with the biggest ad budget? Channel surfing to get away from the annoying so called "content" that prevent you from seeing ads? I feel a bit like I've discovered alien life or something

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#779

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#780

Post by sidibe »

Ray20 wrote: post #512
renewiltord wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, personally, I think you shouldn’t even tell your friends and family. That kind of “native advertising” is ruining human relationships. People should stumble upon your product. If someone mentions it to someone else, that alone should be grounds to shutter your company. Even so-called “catchy domain names” are a deep evil that we didn’t have in the heyday of the US: the ‘70s. Your product should be named exactly…

>If someone mentions it to someone else, that alone should be grounds to shutter your company. I don't agree. It should depend on whether such a mention leads to promotion of the product. We are not barbarians to limit freedom of speech. After any mention of a product by its user, a court should be held to decide whether this mention was advertising. Because even though the user received a benefit from purchasing the…

This is one of the reasons I think food should all have the same packaging color and consistency. If everything was a grey paste that came in an unlabeled brown plastic-lined cardboard box your girlfriend wouldn't be able to manipulate you like that.
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