4 ms·

I had a different idea, which was that governments of the future could ban advertising altogether. I know it's a... stretch, but imagine this: - you can't put

by jakubp 6y ago

I had a different idea, which was that governments of the future could ban advertising altogether. I know it's a... stretch, but imagine this: - you can't put billboards in the city - you can't place any images, text, etc. banners anywhere (except for tightly controlled, single-design descriptions of businesses in buildings, decided by each municipality like it's already done in some cities to maintain consistent look of historical town centers) - in general, no publicly visible ads of any kind are allowed - no ads in videos, TV, etc. Where would ads be? - you can search for ads like you do today, in search engines (preferably opt in), i.e. ads become a catalogue, not a "here I am" attention grabber - gray line (recommendations/suggestions which really are ads would need to be limited/removed as well) to be decided In general, clear up public space and attention holding spaces from explicit commercial interests as much as possible. I'd love to live a few years in such a world and see whether value propositions of businesses would start shifting...

forgotmypw17 6y ago
I grew up in a place like this. It was very nice, honestly. It was possible to attain inner peace and quiet while being out in the street and not be disturbed by something one would consider intentionally intrusive for minutes or even hours at a time.
samizdis 6y ago
As a slight tangent, there have been restrictions on advertising that might affect views from the River Thames in London that date back more than 100 years. In an effort to circumvent these restrictions, a company name was incorporated into brickwork features of what's known as the "Oxo Tower" - Oxo being a brand of stock cubes. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxo_Tower#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxo_Tower#History
notRobot 6y ago
There have been cities that have banned all forms of outdoor advertising (such as billboards)! Here's some links you might like: https://99percentinvisible.org/article/clean-city-law-secrets-sao-paulo-uncovered-outdoor-advertising-ban/ https://99percentinvisible.org/article/clean-city-law-secret... https://www.rapidtransition.org/stories/adblocking-the-global-cities-clearing-streets-of-advertising-to-promote-human-and-environmental-health/ https://www.rapidtransition.org/stories/adblocking-the-globa... https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/aug/11/can-cities-kick-ads-ban-urban-billboards https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/aug/11/can-cities-ki... A gallary of Tokyo stripped of advertising: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2015/aug/12/tokyo-without-ads-japan-stripped-bare-in-pictures https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2015/aug/12/tokyo...
- jakubp 6y ago
  Wow, I never knew, thank you. These pictures look lovely, now in space like this one might actually focus :)
tomjen3 6y ago
You would end up stalling the development of new products. I can't invent and sell an 800 usd massage chair if people assume they cost 5000 usd and so don't even go looking for them. I can't start a "we are cheaper than wallmart" discount business without advertising this fact. You need advertisements, or something like that, to encourage new products and price competition. You do not need tracking for any reason since you can advertise against the content of the article, video or podcast. If I am reading up about apartment prices in AREA, serve me suggestions based on that. Targted ads don't work.
- im3w1l 6y ago
  That's a nice theory but doesn't mirror my experience. Online ads will be for overpriced junk, when it's not literal scams. The reason is it's all highest bidder, no quality control. If there was an ad network with a brand, with a reputation for only running ads for high quality products at competitive prices, then maybe I'd pay attention. EDIT: Writing this comment made me consciously pay attention to ads to verify my thesis, but honestly the quality was better than I expected.
- jakubp 6y ago
  Yes, it would stall development of a lot of business. Many of these businesses are not necessary. Humans would start a different path of looking for what's actually useful rather than falling for what's out there -- or at least that's the dream :) [edit] Onto your second point, that you need ads to promote price competition, I don't think so. There's almost no advertisement in many kinds of services like e.g. hair salons, but they still very much compete (price included). Also, huge majority of professional trainers do not advertise anywhere in my area, and yet we all compete on price and our customers know the range of prices that are reasonable. So information about price etc. flows quite well regardless of ads.
  - bgilroy26 6y ago
    There is an honest need in here, to surface unknown unknowns within the world's of consumer producta/services. It could be solved by a trade show/business fair kind of thing (maybe we would know we had solved it when B2C looked like B2B) The thing is, advertising does not efficiently suggest products/services now, so the idea that removing it would hurt customers ability to find what they want is a little melodramatic
tjpnz 6y ago
If enough people abandon cities I could see this happening. Imagine how much it would cost to engage a marketing company to put your BS "message" onto a billboard and have enough people see it. Imagine too all of the added compliance costs that would come with having to deal with dozens of small municipalities, each with their own quirky laws.
- oblio 6y ago
  That sounds like a nightmare. Cities are not perfect but they're amazing for a million reasons. Civilization started with agriculture and then with cities. There are big cities, see the comments above yours, where billboards are banned or strictly limited. There's no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
IvanK_net 6y ago
I wish you could think a bit before writing such thing. How do you decide what is an ad and what is not an ad? What if I tell my friend, that my new TV is really good? What if I tell it to 10 of my friends? What if I send an email to everyone I know, saying, that my new TV is great? Would you investigate, if the TV manufacturer paid me or not? How exactly would you do it? Or did they gave me a discount on the TV? I wish you could see, that you can not ban advertising, without banning free speech. It would be also great to ban lying in media, right?
- zentiggr 6y ago
  Well, you're not a billboard, or any other fixed sign broadcasting to everyone that walks by, or pushing your opinion at literally everyone you meet, so while you may have an opinion, it's not being forced on everyone who comes in proximity to you. As opposed to the billboards, building side adverts, and web site ads that are just splatting out at anyone that happens by.
Super_Jambo 6y ago
My idea for this is that we should nationalise advertising & product discovery. Over consumption is killing the planet, processed foods are destroying our health, user engagement hacking is eroding free will. Powerful companies like HSBC manipulate the press through the pressure of their ad-spend. [1] But obviously we can't just see the vast advertising industry and all it supports vanish overnight. However, we could nationalize them. We could pay last years ad-spend to market healthy food, low consumption & social connections. Then next year we could cut spending a little, say 90%. If companies can't survive without the economic dead weight of advertising then they shouldn't exist. It's not like they're required for product discovery in the information technology age. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/feb/17/peter-oborne-telegraph-hsbc-coverage-fraud-readers https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/feb/17/peter-oborne-t...
wincy 6y ago
My city (Overland Park, Kansas) definitely has some sort of restrictions on billboards [0]. I looked it up, if you're super interested on page 230 it indicates that there's a density restriction (1200 feet from already existing billboards) and a zoning restriction against residential (400 feet). They also can't be on top of a building, or over 30 feet tall. I can't really think of any billboards nearby, so I think this effectively restricts the billboards to maybe very busy interstates and nowhere else. Going across state lines into Missouri is very noticeable because there's billboards everywhere. [0] http://online.encodeplus.com/regs/overlandpark-ks/export2doc.aspx?pdf=1&tocid=018 http://online.encodeplus.com/regs/overlandpark-ks/export2doc...

by jakubp 6y ago

forgotmypw17 6y ago

I grew up in a place like this. It was very nice, honestly. It was possible to attain inner peace and quiet while being out in the street and not be disturbed by something one would consider intentionally intrusive for minutes or even hours at a time.

samizdis 6y ago

As a slight tangent, there have been restrictions on advertising that might affect views from the River Thames in London that date back more than 100 years. In an effort to circumvent these restrictions, a company name was incorporated into brickwork features of what's known as the "Oxo Tower" - Oxo being a brand of stock cubes. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxo_Tower#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxo_Tower#History

notRobot 6y ago

There have been cities that have banned all forms of outdoor advertising (such as billboards)! Here's some links you might like: https://99percentinvisible.org/article/clean-city-law-secrets-sao-paulo-uncovered-outdoor-advertising-ban/ https://99percentinvisible.org/article/clean-city-law-secret... https://www.rapidtransition.org/stories/adblocking-the-global-cities-clearing-streets-of-advertising-to-promote-human-and-environmental-health/ https://www.rapidtransition.org/stories/adblocking-the-globa... https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/aug/11/can-cities-kick-ads-ban-urban-billboards https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/aug/11/can-cities-ki... A gallary of Tokyo stripped of advertising: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2015/aug/12/tokyo-without-ads-japan-stripped-bare-in-pictures https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2015/aug/12/tokyo...

jakubp 6y ago
Wow, I never knew, thank you. These pictures look lovely, now in space like this one might actually focus :)

tomjen3 6y ago

You would end up stalling the development of new products. I can't invent and sell an 800 usd massage chair if people assume they cost 5000 usd and so don't even go looking for them. I can't start a "we are cheaper than wallmart" discount business without advertising this fact. You need advertisements, or something like that, to encourage new products and price competition. You do not need tracking for any reason since you can advertise against the content of the article, video or podcast. If I am reading up about apartment prices in AREA, serve me suggestions based on that. Targted ads don't work.

im3w1l 6y ago
That's a nice theory but doesn't mirror my experience. Online ads will be for overpriced junk, when it's not literal scams. The reason is it's all highest bidder, no quality control. If there was an ad network with a brand, with a reputation for only running ads for high quality products at competitive prices, then maybe I'd pay attention. EDIT: Writing this comment made me consciously pay attention to ads to verify my thesis, but honestly the quality was better than I expected.
jakubp 6y ago
Yes, it would stall development of a lot of business. Many of these businesses are not necessary. Humans would start a different path of looking for what's actually useful rather than falling for what's out there -- or at least that's the dream :) [edit] Onto your second point, that you need ads to promote price competition, I don't think so. There's almost no advertisement in many kinds of services like e.g. hair salons, but they still very much compete (price included). Also, huge majority of professional trainers do not advertise anywhere in my area, and yet we all compete on price and our customers know the range of prices that are reasonable. So information about price etc. flows quite well regardless of ads.
- bgilroy26 6y ago
  There is an honest need in here, to surface unknown unknowns within the world's of consumer producta/services. It could be solved by a trade show/business fair kind of thing (maybe we would know we had solved it when B2C looked like B2B) The thing is, advertising does not efficiently suggest products/services now, so the idea that removing it would hurt customers ability to find what they want is a little melodramatic

tjpnz 6y ago

If enough people abandon cities I could see this happening. Imagine how much it would cost to engage a marketing company to put your BS "message" onto a billboard and have enough people see it. Imagine too all of the added compliance costs that would come with having to deal with dozens of small municipalities, each with their own quirky laws.

oblio 6y ago
That sounds like a nightmare. Cities are not perfect but they're amazing for a million reasons. Civilization started with agriculture and then with cities. There are big cities, see the comments above yours, where billboards are banned or strictly limited. There's no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

IvanK_net 6y ago

I wish you could think a bit before writing such thing. How do you decide what is an ad and what is not an ad? What if I tell my friend, that my new TV is really good? What if I tell it to 10 of my friends? What if I send an email to everyone I know, saying, that my new TV is great? Would you investigate, if the TV manufacturer paid me or not? How exactly would you do it? Or did they gave me a discount on the TV? I wish you could see, that you can not ban advertising, without banning free speech. It would be also great to ban lying in media, right?

zentiggr 6y ago
Well, you're not a billboard, or any other fixed sign broadcasting to everyone that walks by, or pushing your opinion at literally everyone you meet, so while you may have an opinion, it's not being forced on everyone who comes in proximity to you. As opposed to the billboards, building side adverts, and web site ads that are just splatting out at anyone that happens by.

Super_Jambo 6y ago

My idea for this is that we should nationalise advertising & product discovery. Over consumption is killing the planet, processed foods are destroying our health, user engagement hacking is eroding free will. Powerful companies like HSBC manipulate the press through the pressure of their ad-spend. [1] But obviously we can't just see the vast advertising industry and all it supports vanish overnight. However, we could nationalize them. We could pay last years ad-spend to market healthy food, low consumption & social connections. Then next year we could cut spending a little, say 90%. If companies can't survive without the economic dead weight of advertising then they shouldn't exist. It's not like they're required for product discovery in the information technology age. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/feb/17/peter-oborne-telegraph-hsbc-coverage-fraud-readers https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/feb/17/peter-oborne-t...

wincy 6y ago

My city (Overland Park, Kansas) definitely has some sort of restrictions on billboards [0]. I looked it up, if you're super interested on page 230 it indicates that there's a density restriction (1200 feet from already existing billboards) and a zoning restriction against residential (400 feet). They also can't be on top of a building, or over 30 feet tall. I can't really think of any billboards nearby, so I think this effectively restricts the billboards to maybe very busy interstates and nowhere else. Going across state lines into Missouri is very noticeable because there's billboards everywhere. [0] http://online.encodeplus.com/regs/overlandpark-ks/export2doc.aspx?pdf=1&tocid=018 http://online.encodeplus.com/regs/overlandpark-ks/export2doc...