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Why is me telling you about a product I’ve created, or service I offer exploitative? Are 100% of products you use in your life, products and services that you’d

Why is me telling you about a product I’ve created, or service I offer exploitative? Are 100% of products you use in your life, products and services that you’d know about their existence and value they can provide to you without any form of advertising? If my aunt opens a hair salon and buys ads to get potential customers to come and try her service making world a worse place? What if I build new app, that helps to solve child sleeping problems for new parents - i should just hope they stumble upon it by accident, and God forbids try to advertise to new parents? I’m not arguing there isn’t lots of crap in advertising market, or that big tech ads don’t have problems. But ads are much more complex, and it serves much more use cases than typical “let’s kill all ads with fire” person on HN is aware of. For big chunk of them their only expertise in ads ecosystem is installing Adblock.

jacobolus 6y ago
You dodged the question. What do you think the fundamental difference is between your aunt leaving doorknob flyers, cold-calling neighbors at dinnertime, sending spam emails, buying TV ad slots in the local news program, putting up a billboard on the highway, or buying targeted facebook ads? Do you think there is a fundamental difference between your aunt’s salon and someone selling candy to kids, encouraging people to ask their doctor about a named pharmaceutical, describing a casino’s slot machines, soliciting donations to a megachurch, talking up penny stocks, presenting jingoistic propaganda, making unfounded accusations about a political rival, or describing a phone sex hotline? Where do you draw the line between advertising that you consider beneficial (or ethical) vs. not?
- justapassenger 6y ago
  Of course there’s fundamental difference between all those things you’re describing, and you’re arguing in dishonest way if you pretend not to see it. I’m not arguing there aren’t bad uses of advertising, or bad channels to do it. I’m arguing this is very complex space that you cannot just simplify to few anecdotes and claim that based on it proves it’s detrimental to society and should be destroyed. There’s no point in continuing this conversation, bye.
  - jacobolus 6y ago
    Your answer to the question was another dodge + more gratuitous insults. So I guess we can all agree we are done here.

jacobolus 6y ago

You dodged the question. What do you think the fundamental difference is between your aunt leaving doorknob flyers, cold-calling neighbors at dinnertime, sending spam emails, buying TV ad slots in the local news program, putting up a billboard on the highway, or buying targeted facebook ads? Do you think there is a fundamental difference between your aunt’s salon and someone selling candy to kids, encouraging people to ask their doctor about a named pharmaceutical, describing a casino’s slot machines, soliciting donations to a megachurch, talking up penny stocks, presenting jingoistic propaganda, making unfounded accusations about a political rival, or describing a phone sex hotline? Where do you draw the line between advertising that you consider beneficial (or ethical) vs. not?

justapassenger 6y ago
Of course there’s fundamental difference between all those things you’re describing, and you’re arguing in dishonest way if you pretend not to see it. I’m not arguing there aren’t bad uses of advertising, or bad channels to do it. I’m arguing this is very complex space that you cannot just simplify to few anecdotes and claim that based on it proves it’s detrimental to society and should be destroyed. There’s no point in continuing this conversation, bye.
- jacobolus 6y ago
  Your answer to the question was another dodge + more gratuitous insults. So I guess we can all agree we are done here.