5 ms·

One thing I find consistently underwhelming is how much money is actually being paid for individual ad locations, both digital and especially physical space. Ie

One thing I find consistently underwhelming is how much money is actually being paid for individual ad locations, both digital and especially physical space. Ie, a sizeable city's public space being fully plastered with (nowadays animated) ads _might_ add 1% to the city's spending budget, but even that number seems high, and the proportionality is totally screwed between the public benefits and downsides.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
What's the downside? It's not like they removed artwork from the subway wall in order to cover it with ads. I get that some people don't like seeing ads but there's all sorts of public infrastructure that people would rather not look at.
- kaffeemitsahne 8y ago
  Most other public infrastructure doesn't try to make you unhappy or manipulate your desires in every aspect of your life. Edit: I wish there was some sort of go-to essay on how and why advertising is bad, backed by academic sources. It would make arguing against ubiquitous ads just a bit easier.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    >Most other public infrastructure doesn't try to make you unhappy or manipulate your desires in every aspect of your life. Taxes make me unhappy and yes, all sorts of things the government does, many of them related to infrastructure are designed to manipulate people at scale. Often it's manipulation for "the greater good". Sometimes it's not. Having my infrastructure subsidized slightly more by ads and less by taxes makes me less unhappy. Advertising on public space is highly unobtrusive, like a banner ad compared to some JS advert that covers the whole canvas and tries to trick you into clicking it. The overwhelming majority of of advertisement is irrelevant to any given person. I'm not in the market for ED pills, high end vodka or student loan refinancing. When it's irrelevant like that it's just white noise. If I do see something relevant them maybe I'll look into it and maybe exchange my money for whatever is being sold and it's a win for both parties. Paying for infrastructure is a necessary evil. That money has to come from somewhere. Ads are a fundamentally less evil way of satisfying that necessity than taxes. Also, the ads on the subway have never tried to run malicious code on me and don't report my metadata to Google/FB/the NSA/etc.
    - ndespres 8y ago
      >Ads are a fundamentally less evil way of satisfying that necessity than taxes. Strongly disagree. Advertising is obtrusive, distracting, ugly. It defaces our public infrastructure and crowds our minds. It lets companies into our brains nearly everywhere, companies who generally are working hard to make the world a worse place by overharvesting the earths' natural resources in order to make junk to sell to us, or to enrich a select few by selling an experience to the rest of us. I don't watch television partly to avoid sitting through ads. Raise my taxes to pay for ad-free streets, subways, and everything else that isn't so optional for me.
    - lovich 8y ago
      >...the ads on the subway have never tried to run malicious code on me... Ads that are trying to psychologically manipulate you are doing worse than running malicious code on your machines, they are trying to run malicious code on your brain. Research has shown time and again that there are exploits to trick human minds, and you cant really just update your brain to shut those down. You can try to be mindful of them and avoid them, but if they are plastered literally everywhere when you go out into public, that becomes a much harder task
      - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
        I knew someone would make this comparison. The ability for an static ad to screw with your mind is orders of magnitude less than the ability of code running in your browser to engage in nefarious behavior with the aim of stealing your PII for the purpose of financial crime or just intrusive tracking. Subway ads are like boring old banner ads on websites that are only targeted based on the content of the websites they are on. >Research has shown time and again that there are exploits to trick human minds, and you cant really just update your brain to shut those down. It's very hard to run those exploits when your level of access is "2x2 square of glossed folder paper on the wall" Static print advertisement like found on subways is orders of magnitude less bad than TV, online and arguably radio ads. I don't see why there is some perceived moral argument against using them to help pay for the upkeep of society.
  - dfxm12 8y ago
    Edit: I wish there was some sort of go-to essay on how and why advertising is bad, backed by academic sources. It would make arguing against ubiquitous ads just a bit easier. Could there be a reason there isn't one?
    - AlexandrB 8y ago
      It's just one search away! This is what a search for "the effects of advertising on self-esteem" on DDG yields the following Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_advertising_on_teen_body_image https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_advertising_on_teen... The footnotes are full of peer-reviewed articles like: "Impact of exposure to idealised male images on adolescent boys’ body image"[1]. I spent about 2 minutes on this and this only covers a small sliver of the impact advertising can have on mental health. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1740144504000518?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S17401...
JCharante 8y ago
I just wanted to add that the grass is always greener on the other side. I've spent a decade in Maine where advertising is mostly non-existent, and I loved traveling to Boston or NYC where I got to see the result of giant advertising budgets.
- johnkpaul 8y ago
  Do you mean for the novelty or because you actually enjoyed the advertising?
  - JCharante 8y ago
    I love how billboards (which are essentially banned in Maine) add to the major roads. I love seeing giant ads slapped on the side of buildings, reminding me that the second season of 13 reasons why is now on Netflix. I love seeing advertisements for SaaS companies. It makes me feel like I'm in civilization, and it reminds me of my childhood in Peru.
    - ouid 8y ago
      I had no idea that anyone on earth felt this way.
    - burkaman 8y ago
      This is genuinely an insane opinion
- isostatic 8y ago
  There's some novelty at specific locations (Times Square, Picadilly Circus), sure. I also seek out adverts (blatent ones, like trailers, or christmas adverts), but those are on my terms. I had the misfortune of hearing a few minutes of commercial radio in a taxi when I'd forgotton my earphones the other day. The assault on the senses that advertising brings is unbelievable.
- 20938ny9 8y ago
  >he loved seeing ads It's amazing that there are still people who even see ads.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

What's the downside? It's not like they removed artwork from the subway wall in order to cover it with ads. I get that some people don't like seeing ads but there's all sorts of public infrastructure that people would rather not look at.

kaffeemitsahne 8y ago
Most other public infrastructure doesn't try to make you unhappy or manipulate your desires in every aspect of your life. Edit: I wish there was some sort of go-to essay on how and why advertising is bad, backed by academic sources. It would make arguing against ubiquitous ads just a bit easier.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  >Most other public infrastructure doesn't try to make you unhappy or manipulate your desires in every aspect of your life. Taxes make me unhappy and yes, all sorts of things the government does, many of them related to infrastructure are designed to manipulate people at scale. Often it's manipulation for "the greater good". Sometimes it's not. Having my infrastructure subsidized slightly more by ads and less by taxes makes me less unhappy. Advertising on public space is highly unobtrusive, like a banner ad compared to some JS advert that covers the whole canvas and tries to trick you into clicking it. The overwhelming majority of of advertisement is irrelevant to any given person. I'm not in the market for ED pills, high end vodka or student loan refinancing. When it's irrelevant like that it's just white noise. If I do see something relevant them maybe I'll look into it and maybe exchange my money for whatever is being sold and it's a win for both parties. Paying for infrastructure is a necessary evil. That money has to come from somewhere. Ads are a fundamentally less evil way of satisfying that necessity than taxes. Also, the ads on the subway have never tried to run malicious code on me and don't report my metadata to Google/FB/the NSA/etc.
  - ndespres 8y ago
    >Ads are a fundamentally less evil way of satisfying that necessity than taxes. Strongly disagree. Advertising is obtrusive, distracting, ugly. It defaces our public infrastructure and crowds our minds. It lets companies into our brains nearly everywhere, companies who generally are working hard to make the world a worse place by overharvesting the earths' natural resources in order to make junk to sell to us, or to enrich a select few by selling an experience to the rest of us. I don't watch television partly to avoid sitting through ads. Raise my taxes to pay for ad-free streets, subways, and everything else that isn't so optional for me.
  - lovich 8y ago
    >...the ads on the subway have never tried to run malicious code on me... Ads that are trying to psychologically manipulate you are doing worse than running malicious code on your machines, they are trying to run malicious code on your brain. Research has shown time and again that there are exploits to trick human minds, and you cant really just update your brain to shut those down. You can try to be mindful of them and avoid them, but if they are plastered literally everywhere when you go out into public, that becomes a much harder task
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      I knew someone would make this comparison. The ability for an static ad to screw with your mind is orders of magnitude less than the ability of code running in your browser to engage in nefarious behavior with the aim of stealing your PII for the purpose of financial crime or just intrusive tracking. Subway ads are like boring old banner ads on websites that are only targeted based on the content of the websites they are on. >Research has shown time and again that there are exploits to trick human minds, and you cant really just update your brain to shut those down. It's very hard to run those exploits when your level of access is "2x2 square of glossed folder paper on the wall" Static print advertisement like found on subways is orders of magnitude less bad than TV, online and arguably radio ads. I don't see why there is some perceived moral argument against using them to help pay for the upkeep of society.
- dfxm12 8y ago
  Edit: I wish there was some sort of go-to essay on how and why advertising is bad, backed by academic sources. It would make arguing against ubiquitous ads just a bit easier. Could there be a reason there isn't one?
  - AlexandrB 8y ago
    It's just one search away! This is what a search for "the effects of advertising on self-esteem" on DDG yields the following Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_advertising_on_teen_body_image https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_advertising_on_teen... The footnotes are full of peer-reviewed articles like: "Impact of exposure to idealised male images on adolescent boys’ body image"[1]. I spent about 2 minutes on this and this only covers a small sliver of the impact advertising can have on mental health. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1740144504000518?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S17401...

JCharante 8y ago

I just wanted to add that the grass is always greener on the other side. I've spent a decade in Maine where advertising is mostly non-existent, and I loved traveling to Boston or NYC where I got to see the result of giant advertising budgets.

johnkpaul 8y ago
Do you mean for the novelty or because you actually enjoyed the advertising?
- JCharante 8y ago
  I love how billboards (which are essentially banned in Maine) add to the major roads. I love seeing giant ads slapped on the side of buildings, reminding me that the second season of 13 reasons why is now on Netflix. I love seeing advertisements for SaaS companies. It makes me feel like I'm in civilization, and it reminds me of my childhood in Peru.
  - ouid 8y ago
    I had no idea that anyone on earth felt this way.
  - burkaman 8y ago
    This is genuinely an insane opinion
isostatic 8y ago
There's some novelty at specific locations (Times Square, Picadilly Circus), sure. I also seek out adverts (blatent ones, like trailers, or christmas adverts), but those are on my terms. I had the misfortune of hearing a few minutes of commercial radio in a taxi when I'd forgotton my earphones the other day. The assault on the senses that advertising brings is unbelievable.
20938ny9 8y ago
>he loved seeing ads It's amazing that there are still people who even see ads.