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Sorry, but advertising is unethical on a fundamental level, with or without tracking. It’s psychological manipulation to create demand for consumption. Sometime

Sorry, but advertising is unethical on a fundamental level, with or without tracking. It’s psychological manipulation to create demand for consumption. Sometimes it’s about making people feel unhappy about themselves, and promising happiness if they buy your crap. Other times it’s just the old bait and switch, or other techniques. Either way, it’s about making people buy stuff they didn’t need, which I consider unethical and a net negative on our society.

RoboCheeks 7y ago
I feel you may be going a bit far here. Advertising can simply aim to raise awareness of the existence of a product. I do not believe that is an inherently unethical act. We may be pretty far down the advertising arms race, where cars must be sold on how they make you “feel” rather than stats or practical utility. However, HackerNews itself serves as an advertising platform, but the marketing is generally pretty minimal: “Show HN: I made a thing that lets you encrypt and compress files twice as fast previously thought possible” Is wanting to share that work or idea so bad?
- coldtea 7y ago
  >Advertising can simply aim to raise awareness of the existence of a product. We don't need advertising for that. In 1950s maybe, but in the age of review sites, consumer reviews, forums, product search engines, vlogs, etc we could just as well find anything without advertising. We can have flat listings of products, attributes, etc, and products raise to the top by good reviews, positive word of mouth, etc (with payola and review tampering punishable with hefty fines). Any other kind of advertising would only serve to raise awareness of a product that doesn't deserve it against others that do. Besides most products, including the tons of crappy foodstuff, fast fashion crap, snake oil cures, BS $100 dollar for a $10 dollar third world manufactured item, crappy stuff people don't need, etc., would be better off not existing -- not having awareness of them raised... https://www.monbiot.com/2012/12/10/the-gift-of-death/ https://www.monbiot.com/2012/12/10/the-gift-of-death/
- matheusmoreira 7y ago
  Show HN is not advertising, it's peers sharing cool stuff they made. Just like scientists would share their own research.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > Advertising can simply aim to raise awareness of the existence of a product. Can, but in practice it does not. It's a motte-and-bailey defense. To paraphrase Feynmann, advertising can inform customers about the existence of a product the way sex can produce children - it can, but it's not why anyone does it.

RoboCheeks 7y ago

I feel you may be going a bit far here. Advertising can simply aim to raise awareness of the existence of a product. I do not believe that is an inherently unethical act. We may be pretty far down the advertising arms race, where cars must be sold on how they make you “feel” rather than stats or practical utility. However, HackerNews itself serves as an advertising platform, but the marketing is generally pretty minimal: “Show HN: I made a thing that lets you encrypt and compress files twice as fast previously thought possible” Is wanting to share that work or idea so bad?

coldtea 7y ago
>Advertising can simply aim to raise awareness of the existence of a product. We don't need advertising for that. In 1950s maybe, but in the age of review sites, consumer reviews, forums, product search engines, vlogs, etc we could just as well find anything without advertising. We can have flat listings of products, attributes, etc, and products raise to the top by good reviews, positive word of mouth, etc (with payola and review tampering punishable with hefty fines). Any other kind of advertising would only serve to raise awareness of a product that doesn't deserve it against others that do. Besides most products, including the tons of crappy foodstuff, fast fashion crap, snake oil cures, BS $100 dollar for a $10 dollar third world manufactured item, crappy stuff people don't need, etc., would be better off not existing -- not having awareness of them raised... https://www.monbiot.com/2012/12/10/the-gift-of-death/ https://www.monbiot.com/2012/12/10/the-gift-of-death/
matheusmoreira 7y ago
Show HN is not advertising, it's peers sharing cool stuff they made. Just like scientists would share their own research.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
> Advertising can simply aim to raise awareness of the existence of a product. Can, but in practice it does not. It's a motte-and-bailey defense. To paraphrase Feynmann, advertising can inform customers about the existence of a product the way sex can produce children - it can, but it's not why anyone does it.