4 ms·

>Making advertising illegal Might as well make money illegal.

cousin_it 9y ago
Let's say you're selling product X at price Y. There are three kinds of people you could reach with advertising: * People who have an unmet need for product X at price Y. * People whose need for product X at price Y is already met, but who can be manipulated into buying from you rather than someone else. * People who don't need product X at price Y, but can be manipulated into needing it. Advertising is only good for society to the extent it reaches the first group. Influencing the second and third groups can be profitable for you, but on a societal scale it's just a game-theoretic arms race that wastes resources, plasters our environment with ads, and makes people miserable with new needs. We should totally try to discourage it.
- mbrock 9y ago
  Do you volunteer to be the one to inform business owners and small art house cinema operators that they're now forbidden to engage in any marketing of their goods and services, and all the media that the majority of their revenue is now illegal? This is a completely unrealistic fantasy unless you want to provoke a large scale uprising.
  - cousin_it 9y ago
    I'm in favor of a more creeping push. For example, banning roadside billboards is a great idea, every city that's done it is happy with the results. (I've lived in a city where every major road was lined with billboards, ugh.) Or banning cigarette ads - in fact it's a boon to cigarette companies, because it curtails the spending arms race but doesn't shrink the market (the buyers are addicted anyway). Or blocking popups and popovers - if implemented consistently, it would help small businesses a lot, because they wouldn't have to plaster their website with crap to stay competitive.
    - mbrock 9y ago
      Sounds reasonable, but in the context of the need for an urgent screeching halt to avoid global disaster, such legislation has only a slim chance of passing in the most "enlightened" districts, so it seems kind of useless to talk about. I may seem pessimistic and indeed I am. But like other people do their part by encouraging people to consume less, I try to do my pathetic part by telling them to stop wasting time on hopeless utopian ideas.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >Do you volunteer to be the one to inform business owners and small art house cinema operators that they're now forbidden to engage in any marketing of their goods and services, and all the media that the majority of their revenue is now illegal? Actually, small business owners and small art house cinema operators would (or should) be delighted from such a change -- it means the films they play could get as much marketing revenue (0) as the blockbusters now advertised all across town. This would TURN people towards the more quirky, smaller scale and generally the less able to advertise today, not the opposite...
    - mbrock 9y ago
      Depends on how you define advertising. It's fundamentally impossible to have a market without marketing. The cinema gets its audience by posting events on Facebook, and that's advertising, right?
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - coldtea 9y ago
        >The cinema gets its audience by posting events on Facebook, and that's advertising, right? No, that's just posting their events on their own channel that people have to subscribe to to see. But even if we classify that as advertising we can still allow that -- we're inventive, as humans -- without still not allowing for 90% of what today is used for advertising.
        mbrock 9y ago
        When you ban that 90%, all that desire and energy and capital will sink into the other channels, and the outcome will be nothing like you wanted, just like banning drugs is nothing at all like deleting drugs from society.
        coldtea 9y ago
        Aside from drugs and alcohol, which are addictive, it has worked wonders for tons of other things...
- Turing_Machine 9y ago
  What does "manipulated into needing" mean, exactly? The human race survived without computers for a couple of million years, so obviously we don't "need" them on an existential level. In your scenario, who gets to decide what other people "need"?
  - cousin_it 9y ago
    For example, you've almost certainly been manipulated into feeling mildly inferior because you aren't young and taking joyrides with friends in your convertible on winding roads by the sea. Or if you're not that kind of person, you might be feeling mildly inferior that you haven't yet built a hobby project that would take the world by storm. In other words, most people spend their lives being unhappy about status of some kind. It's partly an innate need, but mostly manufactured by overexposure to images of abnormally high status people. Reducing such exposure (remember that Israeli law that said models should have realistic body weight?) would help reduce misery. As to who gets to decide? We come up with guidelines and make them law. It's not harder than other stuff regulated by law. Anyone can tell when an ad shows an alluring life instead of selling the product on merit.
    - Turing_Machine 9y ago
      "As to who gets to decide? We come up with guidelines and make them law." Who is "we"? " Anyone can tell when an ad shows an alluring life instead of selling the product on merit." "Product merit" largely lies in improving the user's quality of life.
      - Turing_Machine 9y ago
        Addendum: I'm not trying to be difficult here (well, maybe a little) but I'm wondering exactly how "what people need" differs from "my personal opinion of what other people need". In your opinion, people don't need to take joyrides in convertibles. I understand that. But other people's opinions differ. Why should your opinion be privileged?
        9y ago
apk-d 9y ago
I keep coming across this idea and as much as I dislike advertising, I have trouble seeing how making it illegal would reduce consumption. Intuitively, I've always perceived it as a zero sum game. Never heard of anyone who started sitting on top of a pile of cash after installing uBlock either.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >I keep coming across this idea and as much as I dislike advertising, I have trouble seeing how making it illegal would reduce consumption. There are some books about how the advent of modern mass advertising (and a lot of pushing) made people turn to consumption. I've also remember reading some accounts about how tv strikes (that thus prevent ads being air) resulted in reduced consumption but don't have a reference. I think it's the same idea behind banning cigarette ads to reduce smoking, and similar to banning very thin models to reduce anorexia etc. Even if it doesn't work that way, banning advertising could be its own reward!

Let's say you're selling product X at price Y. There are three kinds of people you could reach with advertising: * People who have an unmet need for product X at price Y. * People whose need for product X at price Y is already met, but who can be manipulated into buying from you rather than someone else. * People who don't need product X at price Y, but can be manipulated into needing it. Advertising is only good for society to the extent it reaches the first group. Influencing the second and third groups can be profitable for you, but on a societal scale it's just a game-theoretic arms race that wastes resources, plasters our environment with ads, and makes people miserable with new needs. We should totally try to discourage it.

mbrock 9y ago
Do you volunteer to be the one to inform business owners and small art house cinema operators that they're now forbidden to engage in any marketing of their goods and services, and all the media that the majority of their revenue is now illegal? This is a completely unrealistic fantasy unless you want to provoke a large scale uprising.
- cousin_it 9y ago
  I'm in favor of a more creeping push. For example, banning roadside billboards is a great idea, every city that's done it is happy with the results. (I've lived in a city where every major road was lined with billboards, ugh.) Or banning cigarette ads - in fact it's a boon to cigarette companies, because it curtails the spending arms race but doesn't shrink the market (the buyers are addicted anyway). Or blocking popups and popovers - if implemented consistently, it would help small businesses a lot, because they wouldn't have to plaster their website with crap to stay competitive.
  - mbrock 9y ago
    Sounds reasonable, but in the context of the need for an urgent screeching halt to avoid global disaster, such legislation has only a slim chance of passing in the most "enlightened" districts, so it seems kind of useless to talk about. I may seem pessimistic and indeed I am. But like other people do their part by encouraging people to consume less, I try to do my pathetic part by telling them to stop wasting time on hopeless utopian ideas.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >Do you volunteer to be the one to inform business owners and small art house cinema operators that they're now forbidden to engage in any marketing of their goods and services, and all the media that the majority of their revenue is now illegal? Actually, small business owners and small art house cinema operators would (or should) be delighted from such a change -- it means the films they play could get as much marketing revenue (0) as the blockbusters now advertised all across town. This would TURN people towards the more quirky, smaller scale and generally the less able to advertise today, not the opposite...
  - mbrock 9y ago
    Depends on how you define advertising. It's fundamentally impossible to have a market without marketing. The cinema gets its audience by posting events on Facebook, and that's advertising, right?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - coldtea 9y ago
      >The cinema gets its audience by posting events on Facebook, and that's advertising, right? No, that's just posting their events on their own channel that people have to subscribe to to see. But even if we classify that as advertising we can still allow that -- we're inventive, as humans -- without still not allowing for 90% of what today is used for advertising.
      - mbrock 9y ago
        When you ban that 90%, all that desire and energy and capital will sink into the other channels, and the outcome will be nothing like you wanted, just like banning drugs is nothing at all like deleting drugs from society.
        coldtea 9y ago
        Aside from drugs and alcohol, which are addictive, it has worked wonders for tons of other things...
Turing_Machine 9y ago
What does "manipulated into needing" mean, exactly? The human race survived without computers for a couple of million years, so obviously we don't "need" them on an existential level. In your scenario, who gets to decide what other people "need"?
- cousin_it 9y ago
  For example, you've almost certainly been manipulated into feeling mildly inferior because you aren't young and taking joyrides with friends in your convertible on winding roads by the sea. Or if you're not that kind of person, you might be feeling mildly inferior that you haven't yet built a hobby project that would take the world by storm. In other words, most people spend their lives being unhappy about status of some kind. It's partly an innate need, but mostly manufactured by overexposure to images of abnormally high status people. Reducing such exposure (remember that Israeli law that said models should have realistic body weight?) would help reduce misery. As to who gets to decide? We come up with guidelines and make them law. It's not harder than other stuff regulated by law. Anyone can tell when an ad shows an alluring life instead of selling the product on merit.
  - Turing_Machine 9y ago
    "As to who gets to decide? We come up with guidelines and make them law." Who is "we"? " Anyone can tell when an ad shows an alluring life instead of selling the product on merit." "Product merit" largely lies in improving the user's quality of life.
    - Turing_Machine 9y ago
      Addendum: I'm not trying to be difficult here (well, maybe a little) but I'm wondering exactly how "what people need" differs from "my personal opinion of what other people need". In your opinion, people don't need to take joyrides in convertibles. I understand that. But other people's opinions differ. Why should your opinion be privileged?
      - 9y ago

apk-d 9y ago

I keep coming across this idea and as much as I dislike advertising, I have trouble seeing how making it illegal would reduce consumption. Intuitively, I've always perceived it as a zero sum game. Never heard of anyone who started sitting on top of a pile of cash after installing uBlock either.

coldtea 9y ago
>I keep coming across this idea and as much as I dislike advertising, I have trouble seeing how making it illegal would reduce consumption. There are some books about how the advent of modern mass advertising (and a lot of pushing) made people turn to consumption. I've also remember reading some accounts about how tv strikes (that thus prevent ads being air) resulted in reduced consumption but don't have a reference. I think it's the same idea behind banning cigarette ads to reduce smoking, and similar to banning very thin models to reduce anorexia etc. Even if it doesn't work that way, banning advertising could be its own reward!