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What if we made advertising illegal?

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Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#821

Post by bsnnkv »

jeberle wrote: post #798
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…

This argument is an example of the Perfect Solution fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy#Perfect_soluti...

I knew there had to be a fallacy for this line of argument, thanks for sharing this!

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#822

Post by WorldPeas »

I agree with this article but wish it had more facts and figures backing it up rather than vibes and adjectives.. bad faith actors may be malnourished by lack of ad money to prop up their sensationalism, but there are still platforms like patreon or substack(not advocating to destroy these platforms). Without solid evidence I can’t make the logical leap that advertising alone causes this.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#823

Post by thfuran »

hanspeter wrote: post #753
Hendrikto wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with almost all your points, but this is just false: > Products need marketing. You don't just magically know what to buy. We don’t need marketing, we need information. Objective information, that would be easier to come by in the absence of manipulative marketing.

How would that be easier to come by? Who would maintain such information repositories and what would the incentive be to take that on? (As they no longer could be supported by ad revenue.)

Ad revenue is not the only kind of revenue. Traditionally, people would pay purveyors for goods or services they deemed valuable enough to acquire/use.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#825

Post by kragen »

kerkeslager wrote: post #808
kragen wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a well-enough-thought-out proposal to call "radical"; it assumes that making advertising illegal would make advertising go away and that there would be no drawbacks to this. Even if we all agree that it's bad for people to say things they're paid to say instead of what they really believe, there are many possible approaches to writing specific laws to diminish that practice. Those approaches represent differ…

There are no drawbacks to making advertising illegal as long as the laws are written conservatively. Point out one. Notably "it won't actually prevent all advertising" isn't a downside--preventing, say, 80% of advertising is a heck of an improvement. And FFS let's skip past the childish "how will people find out about products???" nonsense. You're an adult, use your brain. Consumer Reports exists, and in the absence…

I note that you, too, have failed to make a policy proposal that is concrete enough to discuss usefully.

If only 80% of advertising were illegal, probably Consumer Reports could continue to exist, although they would be exposed to some legal risk of being ruled to be illegal advertising, probably prompted by a letter to the Attorney General from a company whose products they reviewed poorly or neglected to review at all. Stricter regimes like most of those being proposed here would make it difficult for CR to discover the existence of products to review.

But possibly you are thinking of a different structure of regulation than I am, rather than just failing to think through its unintended consequences. It's impossible to tell if your proposal stays so vague.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#826

Post by cubefox »

jeberle wrote: post #798
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…

This argument is an example of the Perfect Solution fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy#Perfect_soluti...

See also

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-buying-things-from-a-st...

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#827

Post by lambda »

qoez wrote: post #786
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…

A lot of winners today are those that get away with greyzone illegal practices. The same would happen in a "ads are illegal" world. People would pay for word of mouth, or even pay influential people to casually talk about it, but it'd be off the books etc.

I live in Vermont, where billboards are illegal. It's great, there is so much less visual pollution driving anywhere.

And yes, some people do try to push it, renting space to park their hay carts that happen to have their business information on the side.

But you know what? Those cases eventually get dealt with too, and overall, the law is a complete win, even with a few people testing the line.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#828

Post by thfuran »

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…

>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?

Were they paid by a vintner to say that?

>What about giving out free samples? Is that advertising, and thus should be illegal?

To and by whom? From Nvidia to a GPU reviewer: Yes; from a chocolate shop to a patron: No.

>What about putting a sign up on your business that says the business name? Is that advertising?

No. Do you have any hard questions?

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#829

Post by thfuran »

autoexec wrote: post #370
01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many lines are hard to draw but we benefit from trying to draw them. Worrying too much would be bikeshedding The biggest example that comes to mind is gambling. Japan says it's not gambling if the pachinko place gives you balls and then you have to walk next door to a "different" company to cash out the balls. I say it sounds like their laws are captured by the pachinko industry. Video game loot boxes are technically…

> I say it sounds like their laws are captured by the pachinko industry. It wasn't just the pachinko industry that tied the hands of Japanese government. It was the people too. It's a lot harder to ban something and keep it banned when everybody wants it. Thankfully, not many people want ads, but pachinko was popular enough that it makes sense to continue to let people do it. You're right about still getting a benefi…

>not many people want ads

A whole lot of money wants ads though.

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