my favorite thought exercise about advertising:
“without it, we would have to pay out of pocket for ad supported services!”
ok but when a company pays for advertising, where are they getting that money from? an added cost on the products we’re buying! so we’re paying for product A, we’re paying extra for product A to pay for product B with advertising spending AND we’re funding product A’s marketing department to make the ads on top of that
remove the advertising and we would pay less for product A, we could then afford to pay for B directly AND we would all pay less overall because we take ad department employees and costs out of the equation. we’re literally all paying more for everything overall by having some things “free with ads” than if we just paid for everything in the first place with no ads
I totally agree, and I never understood how adding a parasitic middle-man is supposed to make things cheaper.
“without it, we would have to pay out of pocket for ad supported services!”
Actually, I don’t think we would for a lot of things. The internet existed long before it was advertising funded. Web-pages used to be things that people made because they were passionate about what they put on those pages. Advertising only came later.
Hell, there are still plenty of things that people build and maintain because they like it, not because they make money from it. How many people work for free on things like Wikipedia, FOSS, Fediverse, etc. just because they want to see it succeed?
except without advertising no one knows about product A so no one would buy it so they have to advertise it anyway, whether you’re paying for product B or not
(assuming product A is a new product and not like coca cola or something, but even then they’re still gonna do ads)
the userbase will organically grow if it’s any good through word of mouth imo
only the users can properly decide if a thing is any good, the people that made it can’t
sure but companies are still gonna advertise because it makes a big difference for the company
I think we need to transition from mass produced fixed specs products, which creates incentives for new companies dedicated to niche markets.
And go into producing tailored services and products custom made for the people who wants them. So there’s less differentiation between company a or b, so there’s less reasons for startup c to be created. So there’s less need for advertising. Also, call out that most consumption is induced by advertising for you to want something, when most people’s lives would improve by wanting less and making the most of what they have + healthier people relationships, which is against capitalism.
Advertising isn’t an inherently bad thing; it’s just gotten way out of control.
Advertising is an inherently bad thing. You have been indoctrinated by a culture dominated by ad men for the past 70 years
Advertising does the above image the overwhelming majority of the time: it funds a product or service and then uses that role as a funder to insidiously destroy the service. Advertising has recognized that customers realize it’s toxic impact so it now quickly entrenches itself in every single industry and product that has eyes on it whenever possible at all costs so it can continue its sociopathic process of destroying functionality and ignoring ethics in favor of “what’s the right product? The one I am selling, of course”
What do you possibly think advertising is good for? Telling you about medicine so you can second guess the doctor that has had decades of experience and insist upon something you heard about on hulu? Destroying everything that was good about the Internet? Plastering every space with so much visual clutter and vibrant color because it drives sales that people now covet muted color palettes at home to escape the constant stimulation?
Destroy the advertising industry
How do people find new products or services without some form of advertising? Yeah everything you said was bad, but they all have solutions if the government is willing. Many countries do not allow advertisements of pharmaceuticals, for example.
You do realize that not every business in the country that advertises is a mega conglomerate bent on world domination, right?
I’m more with the opposite view: Advertising, which is manipulating people into buying your product, IS inherently a bad thing. Although some cases may be legitimate.
How do you expect people to find out about new businesses? Especially ones without a brick and mortar storefront.
Advertising will always get out of control. It is the nature of the beast. 1 ad that is skippable after 5 seconds before a video was fine, now it’s multiple unskippable ads before and throughout the video.
“Subscribe for no ads” until the unsaitable desire for ad revenue becomes “Subscribe for fewer ads”.
I was online in the early days of the Internet and didn’t use an ad block for quite some time. I was fine with sites getting ad revenue from banner ads I would ignore. Then one day I encountered a banner ads the literally screamed at me through my speakers when I moused over it and I couldn’t download an ad blocker fast enough.
Advertising never stops at a reasonable level, is will always push further until it finds the level people won’t tolerate then pulls back jusssst a little. The only reasonable response is to not tolerate them at all.
