851–860 of 1001 posts
This website is about blocking advertising because they're often predatory and invasive.
> Outlawing advertising would help protect and reinvigorate our minds and democracy.
Practice what you preach. Or don't, if you just want to make a quick-hit blog post.
Sao Paulo, Brazil, made outdoor advertising illegal. That worked out quite well. The US used to forbid prescription drug advertising. That seemed to work. Ads for liquor, marijuana, and gambling are prohibited in many jurisdictions. The FCC once limited the number of minutes of ads per hour on the public airwaves. That limit was below 10% of air time in the 1960s. The SEC used to limit ads for financial products to d…
> 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 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 I'd really like to see is a study on how much advertising drives consumerism and thereby eventually climate change / pollution. Maybe this could start some discussion.
https://linforme.files.sirius.press/files/1742914627793-Rapp...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you define it conservatively, then advertising will skirt through the loopholes. This would result in a better world still, without the authoritarian system you describe. No need to get it perfect the first try, just start small. For an example of this in action, drive through any of the US states that do not allow billboards.
But how do you define advertising. What about social media influencers? How to prevent someone from paying people to promote stuff? What if it is forbidden and then only a bad government can promote their agenda, but anyone else cannot.
This isn't some piece of rigidly-defined software instruction that also is somehow write-once execute-forever amend-never.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you define it conservatively, then advertising will skirt through the loopholes. This would result in a better world still, without the authoritarian system you describe. No need to get it perfect the first try, just start small. For an example of this in action, drive through any of the US states that do not allow billboards.
Many complex problems can become easier if we can accept that the solutions can be malleable and designed to adapt. We just don’t really apply that to laws for the most part.
Probably one of the hardest new laws we'll ever have to implement.
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…
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…
I have thought about whether banning advertising would be a good idea prior to stumbling onto this article. I'm not saying there would be no downsides, but I think there would be a TON of benefits as well. Consider that advertising is mostly (not 100%) a zero-sum game. It's not zero sum when it helps to inform people of products and services that would make their life better, that they would willingly have sought out…