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What if we made advertising illegal?

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Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#91

Post by bee_rider »

I’m not convinced by the argument that it shouldn’t be considered free speech. What exactly we mean by a private place… I dunno, but I definitely feel like I’m “going to” content, even if it is just digitally, when I’m on a phone. So, it doesn’t feel like they are invading my privacy. It is an annoying person in public, usually protected unless they are violent.

In terms of “let’s try this surprising new change in the laws,” I’d rather see it become illegal to collect a lot of information about people. Maybe we can consider what Facebook/Google and data brokers do something like stalking.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#93

Post by adiabatichottub »

SteveNuts wrote: post #17
daedrdev wrote: post #6

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

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 I click "Checkout", my browser goes through its workflow of asking me once if I approve, and a day or two later I get my product. So I guess if you had payment processing built into the user agent then you can have all the micro transactions you want.

So what's keeping this from being a reality?

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#94

Post by mc32 »

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…

If money exchanges hands. If you pay someone to distribute flyers, or you pay someone to run ads.

If you expect a this for that that benefits the giver. Like say a pharma offering free airfare and lodging to a medical conference if you talk up their product to patients.

There will be corner cases, obscure circumstances, unforeseen loopholes, etc., but this would be a good start.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#95

Post by WalterBright »

galangalalgol wrote: post #67
WalterBright wrote: post #25

Who is going to know about your product if you cannot advertise it?

People who pay for consumer research type services. "I want a general-purpose systems programming language with a C-like syntax that compiles to native code. It should be statically typed and supports both automatic (garbage collected) and manual memory management." One micro payment later I have a list of links and reviews. In this case the research is the product instead of me.

I've known several people who developed quite a nice product, but felt that promotion and marketing were unethical. They failed to move a single copy, and wound up bitter and disillusioned.

> One micro payment later I have a list of links and reviews

You won't get on those lists nor will you get any reviews without marketing and promotion.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#96

Post by logicchains »

spaceywilly wrote: post #90

“What if we made advertising illegal?” Many small companies would go out of business, that’s what. Yes we definitely need advertising reform, but advertising is a very important part of any business if they want to be successful. Making it illegal would cut a lot of businesses off from their potential customers. The author doesn’t seem to propose any alternative solution for this.

[flagged]

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#97

Post by ambicapter »

arrosenberg wrote: post #61
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…

It’s not speech that needs to be regulated, it’s broadcast (which should not have 1A protections at nearly the same level). Even if a waiter is giving recommendations, those are limited to the people at the table and there is clearly a mutual exchange of value. Broadcast (aka Industrial) advertising is something we accept, but not because it particularly benefits the viewer. It benefits the broadcaster and advertiser…

I think this is the best insight on this thread. Laws of this kind would be like banning billboards in cities, which has been done.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#98

Post by kelseyfrog »

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…

The ambiguity of these questions is a feature rather than a bug.

Being unable to tell when something is "advertising" forces everyone to think twice before hawking their wares, which is exactly what we want if we intend to kill ads. The chilling effect is precisely the intention.

It’s the engineer’s curse to believe that airtight laws are automatically better, or that justice springs from mechanistic certainty. The world is fundamentally messy, and the sooner we accept its arbitrariness, the sooner we can get to an advertising-free world.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#99

Post by ASalazarMX »

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…

The free samples are interesting. No one got mad because people offered cheese samples at the grocery store, because they're not forced to eat them. I dread passing by the perfume island when I go shopping because the vendors can be persistent, but IMO that is also not blatant advertising. Offering free samples of perfumes inside magazines also doesn't offend anyone, but that's clearly paid advertising and would be illegal.

Re: What if we made advertising illegal?

#100

Post by teddyh »

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…

Are cigarette ads still free speech? Are you saying those should be legal again?
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