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

submitted 6 days 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] 8 points 5 days ago (16 children)

OTA tv would no longer be possible, nor radio AM or FM.
Newspapers (what is left of them) would no longer be possible, neither wouild magazines.
A good deal of the internet is supported by ads too.
If you are willing to give up everything that is supported by ads, I suppose it could work.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

It's not a bad point, and also highlights how we're simultaneously spoiled for "free" platforms, while we're surveilled for content and metrics, and bombarded by general and targeted advertising.

It's like, imagine a world where there was a water fountain at the corner of every street, every parking lot, and every bus stop. How convenient that would be! But every time you walked near one they would squawk out a little ad.

Sure without the ads, you wouldn't have the water fountains. But given the choice, I'd rather put up with the inconvenience of having to carry a water bottle when I'm out for a long time.

To me the choice seems obvious. Maybe to some people the ads don't feel like such a intrusion, though?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

There is no mechanism by which OTA television can surveil you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

I was listing out the costs of advertising broadly (that's a big one for me), but not every cost applies to every instance. I think my point works just as well without that proviso, though.

I'm curious, where do you stand on the worth it / not worth it question?

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