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Advertising is not a charitable act done for the benifit of consumers, no matter what anybody in the industry tells you. The relationship between advertisers

Advertising is not a charitable act done for the benifit of consumers, no matter what anybody in the industry tells you. The relationship between advertisers and consumers is inherently adversarial, and advertising professionals are well aware of this fact even when they pretend otherwise (pretending otherwise is just one aspect of their complex web of lies and deceit. Whenever they do it, they remind me of what utter scum they are.) If anybody needs proof of this, install an adblocker and observe as your life does not fall apart despite your now limited exposure to advertising.

Avamander 7y ago
Can you please list your definition of "advertising" because it seems to be much more narrow than what I know of.
- liability 7y ago
  Fair question. I am chiefly concerned with the promotion of corporate goods or services. Authentic 'public service announcements' ("Smokey the Bear implores you to stop setting things on fire", etc) do not bother me, since the interests of the 'advertiser' and the target audience are reasonably aligned in cases of genuine PSAs. I consider personal advertisement ("I have a patreon" or "please hire me") tacky, but not nearly so bad as corporate propaganda on account of the relative power dynamics.
henryfjordan 7y ago
> The relationship between advertisers and consumers is inherently adversarial That is naive thinking. Advertising exists to reduce friction in the market. I'm a lot more likely to buy something if I know it exists. I won't go to the movies unless I've seen a trailer, for instance. Maybe installing an adblocker doesn't super negatively impact your life but if we completely stop advertising as a practice then spending would slow and all of our lives would be worse off.
- liability 7y ago
  You may very well go to a movie theater and have a bad experience because an advertiser took a movie they knew was awful and made an appealing trailer for it. The advertiser is just as willing to persuade you to see a bad movie as a good one. They aren't operating in your interest. Far from negatively impacting your life at all, blocking ads significantly improves it. Try it out yourself. I think you'll find that through various interactions with the general public, people who aren't paid to lie about products or services, you still find out about movies worth watching.

Avamander 7y ago

Can you please list your definition of "advertising" because it seems to be much more narrow than what I know of.

liability 7y ago
Fair question. I am chiefly concerned with the promotion of corporate goods or services. Authentic 'public service announcements' ("Smokey the Bear implores you to stop setting things on fire", etc) do not bother me, since the interests of the 'advertiser' and the target audience are reasonably aligned in cases of genuine PSAs. I consider personal advertisement ("I have a patreon" or "please hire me") tacky, but not nearly so bad as corporate propaganda on account of the relative power dynamics.

henryfjordan 7y ago

> The relationship between advertisers and consumers is inherently adversarial That is naive thinking. Advertising exists to reduce friction in the market. I'm a lot more likely to buy something if I know it exists. I won't go to the movies unless I've seen a trailer, for instance. Maybe installing an adblocker doesn't super negatively impact your life but if we completely stop advertising as a practice then spending would slow and all of our lives would be worse off.

liability 7y ago
You may very well go to a movie theater and have a bad experience because an advertiser took a movie they knew was awful and made an appealing trailer for it. The advertiser is just as willing to persuade you to see a bad movie as a good one. They aren't operating in your interest. Far from negatively impacting your life at all, blocking ads significantly improves it. Try it out yourself. I think you'll find that through various interactions with the general public, people who aren't paid to lie about products or services, you still find out about movies worth watching.