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What If We Made Advertising Illegal? (simone.org)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The idea feels like sci-fi because you're so used to it, imagining ads gone feels like asking to outlaw gravity. But humanity had been free of current forms of advertising for 99.9% of its existence. Word-of-mouth and community networks worked just fine. First-party websites and online communities would now improve on that.

The traditional argument pro-advertising—that it provides consumers with necessary information—hasn't been valid for decades.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Graffiti, you say? So it was probably illegal.

I know the rule of law is in sad shape right now, but companies still avoid doing illegal shit right out in the open, and that's all that's needed to cut back dramatically on advertising.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

no it wasn’t illegal. Grafitti wasn’t always a crime.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

People who think they have a right to deface other people's property say the weirdest shit.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Again graffiti was not always seen as a crime. Remember many paints weren’t super permanent when applied to things like brickface for most of our history.