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You block ads in your browser, why not in your city?

• PhilippGille 5y ago
  No mention of Sao Paolo: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cidade_Limpa https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cidade_Limpa
  • dcanelhas 5y ago
    Ah, you beat me to it.
  • f00zz 5y ago
    Highly debatable whether the policy has achieved its goal of a "clean city". The city is uglier and dirtier than ever, especially downtown. A least billboards covered the decay (and were a source of income to buildings).
    • Krasnol 5y ago
      So now they can work on that instead of hiding it behind billboards. You're closer to a solution now.
      • marcosdumay 5y ago
        A very effective way to solve problems in a community resource is to demand maintenance from a private party in exchange from exploiting it in a sustainable way. São Paulo just closed that possibility. Yes, there are other possibilities. By nature those are more bureaucratic and jittery. Maybe they are closer to a solution now, but if that's the case, it's because it easier to make that law more relaxed than strict.
        • lotsofpulp 5y ago
          I consider solving a problem directly to be less bureaucratic than solving it indirectly by involving even more parties and hoping they do what you want them to do and having to negotiate with them on how much they will do in exchange for what they are getting. Taxpayer pays x to government which pays workers to clean. Taxpayer pays x-y to government which pays x-y to government workers who need to go out and negotiate without private businesses and inspect to see if they are doing their job and then punish them if they are not and then deal with disputes. And it is very possible for y>x.
          • marcosdumay 5y ago
            There are unavoidable inefficiencies for a government to perform any action. The idea that a government can maintain all the surfaces of a large city in a pleasant situation is completely unrealistic. It can at most decentralize to to smaller bodies (and get a huge variance of outcomes, what is quite an ok solution too), but São Paulo doesn't have those bodies and is organized in a way that makes them almost impossible to create. Yeah, maybe the best policy for the city is pushing governance into smaller bodies. But if your goal is to make the city visually pleasant, that's the solution that will take decades instead of years from the alternatives.
            • f00zz 5y ago
              The solution should be simple: allow billboard ads, but tax them based on surface area. Use the tax revenue to hire more street sweepers. This shouldn't be hard to implement, as the city is already quite effective at fining businesses that do not comply with Cidade Limpa. Want to turn a building facade into a giant LED billboard, Shenzhen style? Fine, just pay up. Everybody wins. This kind of policy would make sense for a quaint old European town, but here we're talking about the largest city in a developing country. Generally as a developing country your first priority should be to, well, develop. The last thing you want to do is stifle economic activity.
              • marcosdumay 5y ago
                Ok, I could agree with that tax. But it's not the sweeper service that will make the city beautiful, sweeping is a bare minimum. But anyway, how does advertising relates to development? Do you have a clear answer to this? Because not every economic activity feeds the development process, some even slow it down.
                • f00zz 5y ago
                  > But it's not the sweeper service that will make the city beautiful Sure, but you can't force by law those decrepit buildings along the Minhocao to renovate. At least with advertising income they would be able to afford a paint job. > how does advertising relates to development? Everyone hates advertising, but it's an important driver for competition. A new business has no chance of breaking into an existing market without advertising, for instance (though I guess the internet has made outdoor ads less important). Not to mention the direct jobs that were lost with Cidade Limpa.
        • KptMarchewa 5y ago
          >Yes, there are other possibilities. By nature those are more bureaucratic and jittery. Not really. The biggest corruption, waste of money and worst outcomes are when private and public sector intersect. Pure public (like healthcare systems outside US) or private (like food distribution) segments work best.
• titzer 5y ago
  Samsung has started spamming people with mobile notifications that are ads. The goal of the system is to mediate every interaction with digital technology and then leverage that mediation to become an ad delivery platform. Fight it.
• ipaddr 5y ago
  Ad based services have empowered the poor at the expense of the rich who would gladly pay more to hide ads where the poor gladly trade ads for free or reduced price services. If getting rid of ads means the poor will be worse off why do so many well intentioned people support this position?
  • krolden 5y ago
    Have any examples of ads benefiting poor people? This is the first time ive ever heard anyone make an statement like this and its really blowing my mind that people think this.
    • ipaddr 5y ago
      I like to take a look at the entire picture. If google, facebook, instagram, youtube required a 7 dollar a month subscription you would cut access to the poor. A netflix subscription in india is a dollar but even at that price it shuts out people and most don't use it. You are being targeted and identified because people will pay more to show ads to you compared to a poor person. You will get ads poor people won't. The fact that you are willing to allow ads means you end up paying for that poor person's usage. If all rich users decide to adblock the company will be forced to go to a pay model that will shut out the poor. For the richer users it may be in your best interest to pay. For poor users who cannot afford to pay, don't have a credit card, etc ads are in their best interest.
• electrondood 5y ago
  It always struck me as bizarre that distracted driving is illegal, but it's fine to put giant billboards next to the freeway, specifically to attract your attention while you're driving.
• rapjr9 5y ago
  Vermont has essentially banned some kinds of public ads. No billboards allowed alongside roads. Business signs must fit in with the surroundings and rural character of the area.
• WaxedChewbacca 5y ago
  • unbanned 5y ago
• rosmax_1337 5y ago
  Ads should actually be blocked in your city. Advertising as such should be something done in catalogues for this specific purpose. If you are looking for "random things to buy", there is a section for that in the catalogue.
  • unbanned 5y ago
    Governed areas for advertising where you choose to be advertised at.
• smarx007 5y ago
  But ads in real life do not prevent me from going on about my day. There is no analogy to interstitial pages with ads like in Forbes some time ago with the button Continue to your article: it would be infuriating if you had to view an ad before being able to use the subway ticketing system. You also don’t have ads on at the airport timetable screen. You don’t have pinkertons following you to learn your habits and show you “relevant” ads. If you walk into a grocery store wearing sunglasses, the clerk will not stand in front of you and say “I am sorry, please remove your shades before continuing because ads support our store and you need to see them.” But yes, unhealthy amount of advertising IRL should be limited as well.
  • amelius 5y ago
    For most women, photoshopped models on billboards already crossed the line decades ago.
    • lillecarl 5y ago
      And for men the same, but with boxer-shorts ads right?
      • nirui 5y ago
        I think those ads were designed for womans too...
        • zo1 5y ago
          You could say that "sexy women" ads were designed for men.
          • deleted 5y ago
            [deleted]
          • dylan604 5y ago
            you could say that "sexy women" ads were designed by men. This isn't so much of a FTFY as much of just a different perspective of the same comment.
• anfilt 5y ago
  I wish I could. Kinda hard to block billboards or screens showing ads that you don't own.
• knolan 5y ago
  I cycle to work on an ebike. About 25 km each way. One of the major issues is the lack of proper infrastructure and awful attitude by drivers, in particular service drivers. Advertisement company vans are a prime example. There are rolling advertisement posters in most bus stop shelters. These drivers will park up on the footpath blocking pedestrians and those using the bus to update the advertisements, often in the mornings during rush hour. They will park on the cycle lanes and force cyclists out into fast moving and unaccommodating aggressive traffic. The same goes for delivery drivers. Legally they are permitted on double yellow ‘no parking’ lines on the street but the perception is no not hinder car traffic so they park up on the footpath instead. During the pandemic there was a lot of temporary work on cycling infrastructure, mostly lazy efforts such as painted cycle lanes and plastic bollards. These drivers simply drive over the bollards or if wide enough down the protected lane. If you challenge them they are verbally abusive. The attitude of all persons in a mechanically propelled vehicle is that this is not their fault. They are just doing their job. Their companies trot out the tired line that they take safety seriously bla bla bla… So in regards physical advertisement is public space, for me this is a symptom of a wider problem of perceptions of ownership of our cities public space. We forget that cities are for people. We let cars dominate the majority of the available space. We let oversized vehicles make deliveries in medieval city streets. We use cars for short inappropriately short journeys such as for bringing our kids to school, often because it’s too dangerous to let them walk or cycle because there are too many cars. We need to start treating our cities like parks with a focus people and figure out ways to remove ICE powered vehicles and limit the space all vehicles occupy.
  • visarga 5y ago
    > We forget that cities are for people. We let cars dominate the majority of the available space. In my city it's especially bad. Cars on the road, cars on the road side, cars on sidewalks, cars on pedestrian crossings, cars chasing you while crossing the road on the designated crossing. And as you say, if you object they become abusive. It's a large Eastern European city that is living the American dream of going everywhere in a car.
    • knolan 5y ago
• sputr 5y ago
  I wonder why society decided that advertising was so important, it was willing to let it completely dominate (and in my opinion destroy) our public spaces. People who need something will find it just fine without billboards. And people buying things they don't need is not exactly in the interest of society. So why should society pay for it? I've been working on a policy paper idea for my home country - Slovenia. Complete ban of all outdoor advertising except shopfronts and limit those. Now, since you can't just ban it outright, there's still need for advertising, a different solution should be offered: Every community needs to have a public billboard, setup and maintained by the local government, one per 500 residents, where 25% of the area is auctioned to commercial ads, 25% is awarded with a lottery system (to prevent money dominating too much), 25% for cultural events and 25% for nonprofits and charity. The advertising space should be place in a crowded area (like a square). It needs some extra rules for high density area, so that space can be grouped, but not too much. All other outdoor advertising is banned. Since a lot of companies would be effectively banned by this move, some sort of (small) compensation should be paid to them and time given, so they can pivot. Costs of removing the advertising should be subsidized for the same reason. Any advertising facades or roofs (i.e. different colored tiles used to make the roof) can stay, but the ad has to be removed when the roof/facade is replaced. Money coming in from the ad actions should more than cover this expense. Possibly add an exception to "shopping center", where such advertising is permitted, but with strict rules to what such a center is (i.e. has no residents). I know most Americans will balk at such "government overreach" but I think it could pass here if someone actually put some effort in.
  • andrepd 5y ago
    That's amazing, I have pretty much exactly the same ideas. Advertising is a huge business predicated entirely on manipulating people to make purchases they otherwise wouldn't, surgically exploiting weaknesses in our psyche. It's immoral, and it's economically wasteful.
  • 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
    Presumably selling ad space on things like buses and bus stops helps pay for those services. I’m much more sympathetic to physical ads. I can just ignore it instead of waiting to click a skip button.
• botev 5y ago
• IvanK_net 5y ago
  I own a website www.Photopea.com, visited by 3 million people a month. Once in a while, I enable adblock detector, and do not allow usrers with adblocks use the service. I wish everyone was doing that. When you see someone willing to give you a car (or anything else), but they want money in exchange (i.e. sell it to you), you understand, that it is wrong to take the car without giving them money (i.e. stealing). But when you see someone willing to give you an article, a poem, a song, a funny video, but they want you to watch the ad in exchange, lots of people think it is fine to break their conditions. It is extremely easy to detect ad blockers on the web. I wish website creators stopped tolerating ad blockers. People would finally learn to watch ads, or pay for stuff, and the creators would be able to create much better content.
  • p2detar 5y ago
    I hate ads and I never understood the „watch ads to get content“ business plan. Why not just provide demo content and ask users to pay for full access? By relying on ads for revenue, you basically invite adblockers. After all, if people didn’t like them, they wouldn’t exist.
    • cblconfederate 5y ago
      almost nobody pays for 'ad free' experience
      • Nextgrid 5y ago
        The problem is that the ad-free experience often costs orders of magnitude above what the ad view would earn them. Let's take newspapers for example, ad view on a single page load would maybe earn them 10c, but if I wanted to pay I'd need to subscribe to a monthly commitment of ~15£/month (for the WSJ) and still have no guarantee my data won't be used maliciously (there is no way to pay anonymously) nor whether cancelling the subscription will be easy (no idea for the WSJ but the New York Times is infamous for this).
        • shukantpal 5y ago
• yanderekko 5y ago
  Why stop at ads though? I should just have a personalized algorithm that filters all real-world content I see, or otherwise sanitizes it for my consumption. For example, apply beauty filters to everyone around me so I don't have to deal with the unpleasantness of ugly people. Block out any noise that might trigger discomforting thoughts, like political opinions that I disagree with. If it sounds dystopian, well.. once we're used to it, having to experience the ugliness of an unfiltered world would surely seem more dystopian. Right?
  • cyborgx7 5y ago
    Tell me you only read the headline, without telling me you only read the headline.
• dcanelhas 5y ago
  São Paulo has been ad-blocked since 2006. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cidade_Limpa https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cidade_Limpa
• kiryin 5y ago
  I strongly believe that advertising by definition is unethical in all of it's forms and "block" ads to the best of my ability, in real life as well. I do not view ads that reach me by mail, and as for billboards and posters I see around town, I make a note to avoid the products they advertise. I know this doesn't make a difference but it's an ideological thing. If my actions could in theory cause a tiny little dent in a graph somewhere, I make a point to do it.
  • guerrilla 5y ago
    I agree with you, but you might be getting down voted because you didn't say why you think it's unethical.
    • kiryin 5y ago
      A commenter below us put it rather nicely: "Advertising is a huge business predicated entirely on manipulating people to make purchases they otherwise wouldn't, surgically exploiting weaknesses in our psyche."
  • ljm 5y ago
    Junk mail is particularly frustrating because companies are generating so much paper waste only for someone to deliver it to your door, and you to put it directly in the bin. No, Dominoes, I don't give a fuck about your shit pizza, and sending junk through my letterbox 5 days a week isn't going to change my mind. I wish it was banned outright.
    • timbit42 5y ago
      I asked my local post office to not put anything in my mailbox that doesn't have my name on it. Life is good.
    • Izkata 5y ago
      Sports Illustrated recently started sending me their full monthly magazine with my name on it, without a subscription. It also goes straight into the trash. (For anyone thinking once a month doesn't sound too bad: Sports Illustrated has so many pages it stacks up to almost a centimeter thick)
• inglor_cz 5y ago
  I wouldn't mind ads in my browser if they behaved inobtrusively. What makes me block them is their infuriating attempts to hijack my attention even at a cost of preventing me from reading / listening / watching the real content.
• HKH2 5y ago
  Like in They Live?
• n0n0n4t0r 5y ago
  I live in the area of Grenoble, a french city leaded by ecologists than banned ads several years ago (since 2014 if I'm correct). This is a pleasure, or, more precisely, I feel overwhelmed when I exit my city and am surrounded by so many ads! https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.france24.com/en/20141124-french-city-grenoble-bans-advertising-favour-trees https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.france24.com/en/20141124-fr...
  • goodcanadian 5y ago
    The state of Hawaii also bans most ads and billboards (they are considered to take away from the natural beauty, which, of course, is a big tourism draw). I find it odd that there is even much debate about it and that most places do not have laws like this: https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/vol10_ch0436-0474/HRS0445/HRS_0445-0112.htm https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/vol10_ch0436-0474/...
    • niij 5y ago
      I agree they're generally ugly. But I assume most places don't ban them due to freedom of speech and private property considerations.
      • trompetenaccoun 5y ago
        How are ads freedom of speech though? Unless it's the old "corporations are people" again. I invite any CEO to personally walk around my city with a banner of their choosing. Being allowed to spend millions of dollars to make kids addicted to smoking and drinking isn't free speech, it's legalized crime.
      • n0n0n4t0r 5y ago
        IMHO, Freedom of speech is a very american concept, so I don't think it applies worldwide. Nevertheless, adds are almost always authorized.
        • goodcanadian 5y ago
• guerrilla 5y ago
  Absolutely. I don't much care what people do with their stores but billboards are even worse than online ads because they're entirely non-consensual manipulation since you can't avoid them at all. It really should be considered a form of psychological violence.
• midjji 5y ago
  I think thats going to be one of the early successes of AR glasses. Its trivially easy to make, and freemium versions will replace generic ads with ones tailored to you.
• marcodiego 5y ago
  Some cities do block ads in my country: https://99percentinvisible.org/article/clean-city-law-secrets-sao-paulo-uncovered-outdoor-advertising-ban/ https://99percentinvisible.org/article/clean-city-law-secret...
• JulianMorrison 5y ago
  Ads should simply be illegal anywhere, anywhen. Perhaps if we did that for, say, 80 years, then after the last advertiser has dropped dead of advanced age, we could cautiously re-enable the legality of purely informational, manipulation-free adverts.
  • ciphol 5y ago
    Who's going to pay for your Google search, maps, and Gmail if there are no ads?
    • xdennis 5y ago
      The same person who pays for my movie tickets or refills my tank.
    • paxys 5y ago
      Paid online services have been a thing long before internet advertising took over. People used to have search, email, GPS navigation, business directories, news, weather and lots more before Google was even an idea. Why do people suddenly think giving up your privacy to look at obnoxious ads all day is the only way technology will progress further?
      • shukantpal 5y ago
        They don't wanna pay. If you don't like ads, stay in your home or in sandboxed areas you control or approve. You don't get to control other peoples' property.
      • aembleton 5y ago
        How will anyone know about search, email or GPS navigation? If its word of mouth, isn't this a form of advertising? How will they pay for them without a credit card; which will be issued by a bank that can't advertise them. Does that also rely upon word of mouth? How can a new entrant arrive in the banking industry without being able to advertise its services? Without advertising new companies can't develop new services because only the existing ones will have customers.
• Nasreddin_Hodja 5y ago
  I don't block ads especially, I'm OK with them. I block requests to 3rd party hosts, this also blocks ads too
• simion314 5y ago
  About online ads, is most of the tracking and code that runs to identify my preferences or is some kind of anti=fraud shit,that will get even more complex and invasive as bad guys will try commit fraud. I am thinking at a partial solution(emphasize on partial), offer the users a non-tracking account(Free) , you still give them targeted ads but using a non tracking method like a survey at account creation, options for the user to tell you that he does not like this type of ad, options for the user to tell you what kind of ads he wants to see (like I could accept non-animated ads, software related, local business related, technology related, and article related ads). But all of this would be impossible if most of the tracking is for anti-fraud , then you would need some DRMed browsers to confirm you probably are a human.
  • Nextgrid 5y ago
    You can just sell ads based on time periods, then it doesn’t matter how many bots view the ads.
• the-dude 5y ago
  My city replaced the old billboards ( primarily in bus stops, but there are freestanding ones as well ) by electronic billboards. It is like there are giant 2 meter tall Phones everywhere, but this time they only show ads. I go out of my way to be offline when I am out of the house and now the city council has shoved these screens right in my face. No escape.
• randallsquared 5y ago
  I mean, the simplest answer is that "your browser" implies actual possession of the browser, whereas "your city" implies only a metaphor of possession of the city, so the question is deliberately misleading.
• einpoklum 5y ago
  The giant ad billboards always remind me of the giant portraits of the supreme leader they have in authoritarian world states. Instead of his image dominating the public sphere, we have the Coca Cola company, or some clothers retailer or what-not. There's also that scene in Blade Runner with the giant ads about a new life in the other colonies.
• young_unixer 5y ago
  Because blocking ads in a city would require coercion. Blocking ads in my browser doesn't.
• sh4un 5y ago
  Are we even allowed outside any more?
• stareatgoats 5y ago
  Advertising as it is done presently has at least three faults, which is just as much a fault with the ethics of society for allowing this to go on: - adverts seeks to hijack your attention away from whatever you were doing, which is a mental burden resulting diminished performance (in the case of a work environment), is downright dangerous in the case of traffic environments and lessens the enjoyment in the case of leisure activities. - there is little to no ethical restriction on content; the advert that gets displayed is likely not that of the best product: it is the one whose owner paid the most money, and the ad that gets the most traction is the one that tells the best story, so perfused with lies by omission and other forms of deceit that we don't even notice any more. - the ubiquity of ads causes an perpetual escalation of the struggle for attention, to the extent that we might credibly expect to get ads implanted in our brains eventually if we don't say enough is enough. The solution seems simple enough to me: we need to establish a code of conduct for advertisers which at the core means that they may no longer shove ads down our throats at every junction; instead adverts should be freely displayed in separate spaces (like a dedicated page on each website) where people voluntarily could look for products and services that they need (or just to browse), much like the ad pages in newspapers of days now long gone by. All we need is a mechanism that promotes this behavior, and sanctions breaches.
  • snarfy 5y ago
    If my attention has value, then hijacking it is a form of theft.
    • cblconfederate 5y ago
      If my attention has value, then not being paid for it is theft
      • indigochill 5y ago
        Someone is being paid for it - the content provider/location you've given your attention to. They're just selling it off to third parties without your consent.
• stevehawk 5y ago
  I think this will be a whole new issue when AR becomes standard. In fact, it's the whole reason I don't want AR. I just see ads for days coming out of it. Everyone putting little ad starting QR codes (or whatever they settle on) everywhere so every time I turn my head there's a gecko on a coffee table in the random store I'm in trying to sell my car insurance.
  • luma 5y ago
    Depends on who owns that AR. If I own it, I could replace all the car insurance ads on the road with cute geckos doing adorable things.
    • zhoujianfu 5y ago
      Probably via the free GEICO AR app!
    • perryizgr8 5y ago
      > If I own it That's a big if. Looking at the current situation I predict Apple/Meta/Google will own "your" AR. Just like with smartphones.
    • midasuni 5y ago
      I think what’s worth asking is what services will I have to use AR for.
• tarkin2 5y ago
  When physical ads track me, and harass me in a shop, then I'll consider it.
  • jeroenhd 5y ago
    Physical ads do actually track you in a lot of cases. Street level ad screens with cameras are widely available, though the ad companies promise they they only use those to profile you, not to track you. Traffic billboards have even begun reading license plates for personalised ads. The days where a billboard was just a billboard are over, ended by the ever scummier advertising industry and their lust for data.
    • tarkin2 5y ago
      Aye. If someone offers me a way to block them, I'll happily use it.
• habosa 5y ago
  I can’t stand ads on government property, particularly in spaces where I am captive. The best example is public transportation. There are ads all over the station and then ads all over the interior (and exterior) of the train/bus during your ride. Why should I be subjected to this private noise while taking public transportation? Some city needs to stand up and fix this. Allow me to get where I am going in peace.
  • rambambram 5y ago
    Exactly. I can stand ads on the internet, I just block 'm. I can stand ads on private property. But just don't scream for my attention on (semi)public properties. The price of that sh!t is already covered by taxes. And if it's not, the officials are incompetent.
    • Symbiote 5y ago
      Transport for London (9000 buses, 985 trains, trams, hire bicycles, taxi administration, disabled people transport, some trains, some major roads in London, 755km of railway track) have a budget of £9.7 billion, of which £5.1 billion is from passengers (tickets etc), and £0.16 billion from advertising. That is lower than I thought it would be, and lower than one would expect given the space TfL dedicate to advertising in their budget report. I would pay 3% more on travel tickets to not have any advertising. https://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-budget-2020-21.pdf https://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-budget-2020-21.pdf (this is pre-Covid.)
      • ghusbands 5y ago
        Even if it were all advert free at some point, someone with a huge advertising budget would probably offer hundreds of millions to be a 'sponsor' and get their logos all over the place, and then the advertising will start again. Even the £160 million they're getting now would likely be enough to persuade them, as it's not a trivial amount, even compared to their overall budget.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• whalesalad 5y ago
  I am hoping for a membership service (think Clear vs TSA PRE) that allows you to avoid ads on all (digital) platforms. YouTube and Twitter are becoming so terrible with advertisements these days. I don't want to complain about it though - I want to just pay some $$$ to not see them anymore. We went all-in on this advertising based economy and no one really wants it but the advertisers.
  • paxys 5y ago
    You can do exactly that on YouTube (with Premium). It is one of the highest value memberships I can think of, considering how much time I (and the rest of the world) spend on YouTube every day. Ultimately though, all such solutions turn into yet another money grab. Cable TV was supposed to be this premium ad-free experience, but media conglomerates realized hey, why not get money out of both subscriptions and ads?
    • whalesalad 5y ago
      I just wish there was a one-size-fits-all approach.
    • Nextgrid 5y ago
      > media conglomerates realized hey, why not get money out of both subscriptions and ads? This is exactly the reason why I advocate against YT Premium. You're still providing data to Google (and you need to provide real data otherwise the payment may fail) who has proven their bad faith several times with dark patterns and their non-GDPR-compliant "consent" flow.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• Miner49er 5y ago
  Reminds me of this Banksy quote: People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you. You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity. Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs. – Banksy
  • 323 5y ago
    > Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. Funnily enough, you can say the same thing about Bansky's art: > An artist who defaced several works of famed graffiti artist Banksy has been charged with the crime of vandalism -- which is pretty incredible since Banksy's collection is itself an act of vandalism https://www.tmz.com/2014/04/02/banksy-david-william-noll-ricardo-cabeza-arrested/ https://www.tmz.com/2014/04/02/banksy-david-william-noll-ric... What a hypocrite: > The E.U. Rules Against Banksy in His Trademark Fight With a Greeting Card Company, Citing His Own Statement That ‘Copyright Is For Losers’ https://news.artnet.com/art-world/banksy-trademark-full-colour-black-1971339 https://news.artnet.com/art-world/banksy-trademark-full-colo...
    • kdmccormick 5y ago
      What are you gaining by arguing this? What point are you trying to make? Do you really think an artist who hand-paints pieces on walls is comparable to a corporation that copy-pastes their flashing, carefully targeted, profit-seeking message onto dozens of billboards overlooking a highway? Are their motives and the results of their work not wildly different? Your second example is valid. But your first example is a complete strawman. Bansky didn't sue, the property owner did, because they liked Banksy's thing and didn't like what the vandal did.
• Overtonwindow 5y ago
  It’s gotten so bad online that I do everything in my power to block them, prevent them, avoid them, and ignore them. I mute YouTube videos, I use adblock, and scroll right past the ads. I refuse to even look at them.
  • timbit42 5y ago
    I recommend replacing Adblock (Plus) with Ublock Origin. Also, for YouTube, check out the SponsorBlock browser plugin.
• dcanelhas 5y ago
  Because how else would google maps break ties between equally long paths when giving directions, if not by which ads you see along the way? ;)
• speeder 5y ago
  Well, a bunch of cities in Brazil where I live, banned ads too! São Paulo is a very notorious one.
• 8organicbits 5y ago
  > Blocking ads may work online, but unless you spend your life in VR goggles, one cannot apply technical solutions alone. The VR goggle / IRL ad blocking is an interesting idea. I immediately jump to fear that something politically sensitive could be censored. However, I suppose we still have that issue in online ad blocking. Are there any known examples of censorship of content critical of $GOV being applied to an ad-blocker? Any crowd sourced list could in theory be vulnerable to censorship.
• Werbung 5y ago
  I wrote that before but happy to repeat: I do sometimes antiadvertisement. I see anoying ads? I will write those companies. Works best when cc as many mail addresses you can find from them. I also don't think most advertising is fair anyway. Most companies can't afford it, you actually don't see a lot of different ads as well. It's always magnum ice cream, cigarettes, some weird hipster new thing no one needs.
• captn3m0 5y ago
  Bangalore did this for the last 2 years, albeit for a different reason. BBMP (the civic body) took down thousands of billboards and hoardings over weeks, and while there were violations, Bangalore was (for the last 2 years or so) a city with adblock. Unfortunately, the ban was struck down by the court this year in August, so we're going back. For what it's worth, the ban was called out as great by various citizen activist groups[0], even if the reason it happened was quite political. A few links: - https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/bbmp-bans-all-types-of-outdoor-ads-for-a-year/articleshow/65302851.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-natio... - https://www.myhoardings.com/blog/ban-on-bangalore-hoardings-squashed-by-high-court/ https://www.myhoardings.com/blog/ban-on-bangalore-hoardings-... [0]: https://bengaluru.citizenmatters.in/bbmp-bangalore-illegal-hoardings-are-back-28052 https://bengaluru.citizenmatters.in/bbmp-bangalore-illegal-h...
  • perryizgr8 5y ago
    I live in bangalore. I found the ad ban extremely irritating, because they took down the billboards, but left torn cloth or plastic sheets in place! It even empty boards. It was looking so ugly everywhere. I'd rather see the ads. At least advertisers try to make their billboards look aesthetically pleasing. I do agree that it becomes excessive in some places. I feel that public (taxpayer funded) infrastructure should not have any ads.
• frogpelt 5y ago
  Get rid of capitalism. Problem solved.
  • timbit42 5y ago
    That would solve a lot of the world's largest problems. Let's have worker cooperatives and housing cooperatives instead.
• aero-glide2 5y ago
  I don't go out
• BurningFrog 5y ago
  The difference is that it's my computer, but I don't own Oakland.
  • timbit42 5y ago
    Don't you pay property taxes that pay the salaries of the mayor and councilors?
  • SyzygistSix 5y ago
    Mojo Nixon and I both disagree. Each and everyone of us owns every bit of land on the planet. The seas too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERXgL9hLuzQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERXgL9hLuzQ
• Kaze404 5y ago
  Outside of my office's window I can see a billboard about 2 blocks away from my apartment. For about 30 minutes every couple of hours it flashes red, blue, white and purple at about 3 different colors per second, with the following text in the middle: "You should advertise here!" It honestly blows my mind how someone can look at it and think it's a good idea, instead of how absurd that someone is allowed to put up a giant seizure machine in one of a city's busiest streets. I used to think that advertisement had gone too far when it was used to track people online, but a literal real life recreation of the iCarly episode where Spencer causes a traffic accident using a billboard caught me by surprise.
  • ghusbands 5y ago
    If it is three times per second, it's unlikely to induce seizures in those with photosensitive epilepsy. Though, depending on where you live, there may still be rules against it (some places set the limit at 2Hz), so it may be worth reporting it. Flashing signs like that are still very rude, though.
    • Kaze404 5y ago
      Sorry, I shouldn't have said that. My point is that it's fast, but I don't know how fast.
• armendhammer 5y ago
  Be ready for websites that make you pay to read them. They gotta make money to keep up somehow, and if they can't do it through ads, they will do it through subscription.
  • timbit42 5y ago
    This is what the world needs. "Free" products and services mean you are the product or service.
    • shukantpal 5y ago
      The world is fully capable of building what it needs, in this case. And if the world needs it, it'll get subscription products.
• pgcj_poster 5y ago
  > The good citizen in real life fights the planning applications for new adverts; they tell their local politicians about the damage badverts cause; they fund campaign groups to tell others the same. Make a conscious decision to avoid adverts, and enjoy your life more. The analogue of blocking ads in real life is physically removing, destroying, or defacing them.
• izacus 5y ago
  My city (and several others I've lived in) strongly restrict the amount of advertising that can be put in its center and is thus a much more pleasant place than many other cities I've visited. So there are "adblocks" in cities, they're just done in a much better way than on the web: the ads aren't created at all instead of forcing citizens to spend time fighting an individual war against them.
• sithlord 5y ago
  I think my bigger problem with browser ads is they are targeted, I have less problem with ads that are not targeted.
• franklampard 5y ago
  Because it takes more effort than clicking a few buttons
• aww_dang 5y ago
  There's an important distinction between prohibiting speech or commerce you dislike and refusing to consume or participate in what you dislike. If the equivalent augmented reality technology were developed, I'm unsure of what grounds objections would stand on. If someone wants to go about with video goggles which replace billboards with waterfalls or wildflowers, go for it. Develop the technology and release it.
• Synaesthesia 5y ago
  The US government subsidizes advertising on tax so that taxpayers pay for the privilege of being propogandanized to.
• sureklix 5y ago
  who is building an adblocker using ARKit?
• cs702 5y ago
  Like almost everyone else on HN, I believe everyone should have the right to block ads in any city, and it should be possible with VR technology in the not-too-distant future. That said, I would always want to live in a city in which advertisers are constantly fighting each other to get everyone's attention with ads, in every possible way, to the extent permitted by reasonable zone/cosmetic regulations[a], because the alternative is often symptomatic of economic stagnation or even disaster. Anecdotally, a city without ads is a city without economic growth. Compare: * Cities in the former Soviet Union: https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=soviet%20union%20city%20streets https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=soviet%20union%20ci... * Cities in North Korea: https://www.google.com/search?q=north+korea+city+streets&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=north+korea+city+streets&tbm... * Cities in East Germany before reunification: https://www.google.com/search?q=east+germany+city+streets+before+reunification&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=east+germany+city+streets+be... to, say, * Peking streets: https://www.google.com/search?q=peking+streets&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=peking+streets&tbm=isch * Tokyo streets: https://www.google.com/search?q=tokyo+streets&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=tokyo+streets&tbm=isch * Times Square: https://www.google.com/search?q=times+square+nyc&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=times+square+nyc&tbm=isch -- [a] For example, in the US it is virtually impossible to display ads on residential streets, because doing so requires getting explicit permission from local government bodies like a neighborhood commission.
  • zephyrthenoble 5y ago
    This is an example of correlation without causation, even if your assertion that these cities are "dead cities without growth".
• timzaman 5y ago
  Google Fi prides itself on blocking spam calls. Yet its business depends on the same cause: ads and marketing
• partiallypro 5y ago
  I have no problem with seeing ads in person, I think I'm not against height limits on signs for stores though, because they can really remove the beauty of a city.
• ls15 5y ago
  I always thought that I at least should be entitled to be paid by companies who are using my mental bandwidth for their profit, without even asking for my permission.
• gumby 5y ago
  The author’s suggestion to go to the government can work. In the 1960s, the president’s wife rallied support for a “Highway Beautification Act” to remove billboards from much of the federal highway system. It largely worked. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/president-lyndon-johnson-signs-the-highway-beautification-act https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/president-lyndon...
  • makeworld 5y ago
    So it can work... if you're the president's wife. This is a terrible example to prove that an ordinary citizen can make change like this.
• angled 5y ago
  Canberra, Australia, doesn’t have billboards except in the light industrial zones. It’s much prettier for it! https://www.abc.net.au/news/specials/curious-canberra/2017-06-19/why-doesnt-canberra-have-billboard-advertising/8622186?nw=0 https://www.abc.net.au/news/specials/curious-canberra/2017-0...
• akagusu 5y ago
  If we get rid of all ads, how will advertisers trick our brain to buy stuff otherwise we would never buy?
• riedel 5y ago
  See also http://cyborganthropology.com/Diminished_Reality http://cyborganthropology.com/Diminished_Reality or watch Steve Mann's explaination what the ey tap is good for: https://youtu.be/DiFtmrpuwNY https://youtu.be/DiFtmrpuwNY I guess unfortunately the holo lense and alike will be rather used to inject ads to reality
• dhosek 5y ago
  I got stuck in traffic last week next to a mobile light-up advertising truck. The lights were so bright it hurt my eyes. I had to drive with one hand up blocking as much of it as possible. Welcome to the future.
• Tempest1981 5y ago
  The amount of ads packed into an NBA basketball game on TV is startling: - each player's jersey - arena walls - courtside walls - projected onto the court floor (updated each minute) - on the side and top of the backboard - most TV graphics ("Taco Bell play of the day") - split-screen ads during free-throws - traditional commercials during time-outs Monetize all the things! It's exhausting.
  • ThinkingGuy 5y ago
    Don't forget one of the most obnoxious phenomena: making the name of the sports venue itself into an advertisement (e.g., "Regional Bank Stadium," "Big Telecom Co. Arena," etc.)
  • midasuni 5y ago
    But not in our dreams. No sir-ee
• beloch 5y ago
  It's interesting how the author of this piece uses "badverts" and "badvertisers" because it implies that there are "goodverts" and "goodvertisers" in the settings he's speaking of.
  • bearbin 5y ago
    As the author, yes. Some parts of the city are innately commercial spaces, and commerce requires advertising. But let it stop at colourful shop signs (even neon is fine, in a shopping centre!), signwritten vans for trades and deliveries, or the circus' sign on the fence of the public park. The badverts are the billboards covering up entire buildings; the LED pedestals that block your way as you walk and distract drivers; and the incessant advertising for unethical investment companies on public transport.
• grahamjpark 5y ago
  I like ads. Ads support the websites and people that I like. Sometimes I find cool things through ads. I still use UBlock Origin though because ads have broken my trust. They don’t vet them enough, so malvertising happens sometimes. And they absolutely destroyed the concept of privacy across the web.
• bennysomething 5y ago
  Fuck my city deciding what adverts I see. That's called censorship. Want something like that check out drab soviet era cities were advertising was banned. Banksy certainly seems to have thin skin if he gets hurt feelings over adverts. Fuck that too, I'm responsible for my own feelings.
  • geraldyo 5y ago
    Look into the city of São Paulo, Brazil, before and after banning billboard ads before drawing an example from the USSR
    • bennysomething 5y ago
      just read a guardian article about that, they brought back advertising in a controlled way. This seems fair. Also Googled before and after pics of the city, can't say there was much of an improvement. I live in the UK, advertising is probably controlled by planning laws here, I live in a very historic touristy city, there's advertising but it doesn't impact the beauty at all.
• MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  I prefer not to delude myself into thinking it's my city.
• peckrob 5y ago
  My wife and I were talking about this a few weeks ago. I've basically stopped listening to terrestrial radio because it seems like the majority of it is ads. A trend I've noticed over the last few years is that gas stations specifically. As gas stations have replaced older pumps with newer ones, the new ones feature LCD screens that, as soon as you are done selecting the myriad of options it now requires just to put fuel in a car, you are suddenly bombarded with videos and very loud advertisements. I have been walking away and sitting in my car but, a few weeks ago I got yelled at by a pump attendant that I had to stay next to my fuel door while it was filling for "safety reasons." So now I have to stand there and be bombarded by this thing screaming at me about what is for sale while filling up and it is very, very annoying. Another one is a restaurant here in town that has one of these new LED signs that is so bright at night that it actually hurts my eyes. It is so bright that you can't make out what is in the road beyond it. Multiple people have complained about it my city's subreddit and it has lead to at least one traffic accident that I know about. I even went to file a complaint with the city zoning board about that one but was told there was nothing they could do as there were no regulations regarding the brightness of signs. They suggested I complain to the owner. And it's so manipulative. "Hey, you're not good enough because you're too fat, or your hair is thinning, and no one will ever love you." "Look at these starving abused puppies, just LOOK AT THEM and donate now." In the ever increasing war for our attention, it really does feel like physical advertising is becoming louder, more aggressive, more insulting, and just so much more ubiquitous that it is almost impossible to get away from it. We have got to find a way to start to reign in some of the more annoying - and dangerous - advertising going on out there.
  • ipaddr 5y ago
    Do you vote in any in your city? Mayor/councillor? Tell them and tell them you represent other voters for greater pull. The city can regulate if you can get a rule on the books.
• makecheck 5y ago
  One of the worst examples is we (still) have PLANES flying with banners behind them in California. They make noise, pollute the air, and assault your eyes when you could be looking at a beautiful blue sky without them. And I don’t know why it’s OK to “rent” this “space” to advertisers because, unlike something like a billboard, it’s not like someone went to the trouble of erecting a sky board with limited ad space.
  • TAKEMYMONEY 5y ago
    NYC was plagued by floating, glowing LED billboards in the Hudson River for a while. Something out of Blade Runner. https://ny.curbed.com/2019/10/9/20906159/ballyhoo-media-floating-billboards-banned-nyc https://ny.curbed.com/2019/10/9/20906159/ballyhoo-media-floa...
• samlosodesign 5y ago
  Vermont outlawed billboards decades ago. It’s already happened.
• keraf 5y ago
  I just came back home to Europe after a month long stay in a village in Africa, I was baffled by how oppressing the amount of advertisement is in Western cities. It's the first thing I noticed when I got back. It never really occurred to me before that, but now I see it everywhere and it's sickening. Especially most of it is for low-quality/unhealthy products. I developed a particular hate for attention grabbing digital advertising displays. The anti-billboard movement, adopted by a few cities such as Geneva[0], is a good step towards less visual pollution. [0] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/directdemocracy/geneva-z%C3%A9ro-pub-_how-geneva-could-join-anti-billboard-movement/43459942 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/directdemocracy/geneva-z%C3%A9r...
• throwaway55421 5y ago
  I recently submitted an objection to an advertising banner in my city and the planning board rejected it. Result.
• jgrowl 5y ago
  Adblock will be the first thing I install if usable AR-glasses ever become actually practical.
• broabprobe 5y ago
  it's honestly a big reason I live in Vermont: no billboards
• novok 5y ago
  There are some cities and places that do reduce intrusive real life advertising by banning billboards for example, or putting up a billboard tax to reduce them and divert the visual pollution cost into the city budget. Same with regulations reducing the loudness of audio ads, or banning them, or changing how storefronts can put their names up. That is more like a HOA regulating what kind of house style you can have although. It's definitely possible!
• rubicks 5y ago
  Because I can't install uBlock Origin in my city. https://ublockorigin.com/ https://ublockorigin.com/
• Fnoord 5y ago
  As soon as AR glasses take off some bright fellow will make an adblocker for it. And as soon as that happens I will want AR glasses and reward the dev for their work.
  • midasuni 5y ago
    Some bright fellow will be paid to replace the Pepsi adverts with coke adverts. Ones which dance around and take even more of your attention.
• bigmattystyles 5y ago
  In the Bay Area, from the peninsula, take 280 to SF instead of 101 - that’ll demonstrate the difference instantly.
• surajs 5y ago
• GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Yeah the garage in front of my house often leaves their sign on after 8pm (when it's supposed to be off) and it's super bright. Really annoying in summer when I have the windows open. It would be nice once AR glasses come. Although they probably won't be able to black things out (unless they also have an LCD layer to darken certain pixels) as well as a colour layer. Life online has improved so much with adblockers. I literally rarely see ads anymore online or on TV.
• nullc 5y ago
  Marin County CA has banned outdoor advertising billboards since the 1930s[1]. This results in a noticeable reduction in night time light pollution compared to surrounding areas, and -- of course-- a lack of obnoxious outdoor adds. [1] https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=HTES19380414.2.41&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------1 https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=HTES19380414.2.41&e=-------en--2...
• sMarsIntruder 5y ago
  This reminded me this project on kickstarter. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ivancash/irl-glasses-glasses-that-block-screens https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ivancash/irl-glasses-gl...
• quocanh 5y ago
  What if we could have free public transportation in exchange for an advertisement bombardment? That actually sounds like a great idea (to me). Sure getting on a metro train would make you dizzy and overwhelmed. But we would actually have a metro train!
• rosco5 5y ago
  i had mediated reality ads blocker via wearable a/r goggles in grad school in 2003. fig1 is an any billboard ads replaced with a xterm to show inbox or whatever. it worked well in labs and constrained environment. didn’t work IRL. should work today IRL with 1k lines of code with modern hardware + algos/models. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.58.9938&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.58...
• AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  Iowa seems to have a law that forces billboards to be further away from the interstate. They occupy a much smaller slice of your visual field. It makes a difference. It also makes a difference that they can't put too much text on them, because they're too far away for you to be able to read that. So you have visually smaller billboards with simpler messages on them. Driving across Iowa is more pleasant because of this.
• rzz3 5y ago
  I block ads in my browser primarily because I want to block the ad networks from collecting information about my browsing habits. Doesn’t really apply here.
• matheusmoreira 5y ago
  > When you’re reading in the hypothetical yellow pages, that’s advertising. > Or when you’re walking down the high street, looking in shop windows; advertising again. The important fact here is in this case we asked for it. I opened the online store app. Go ahead and show me the products. That's what I came for. I wouldn't even call that advertising, to me it's just information. Totally different from shoving those products in my face every time I try to do anything. Now I don't care about products, I don't want to see them or hear about them. But these advertisers insist on subjecting me to their ads.
• golemiprague 5y ago
• posterboy 5y ago
  actually, Indon't currently, and I feelnbad about it
• soheil 5y ago
  Ads in real life don't track you and watch your every move.
• pjfin123 5y ago
  It's pretty crazy that we allow ourselves to be bombarded with the psychological attacks that are advertising. Ads use pictures of food or sex appeal that manipulates our lizard brains or social attacks to convince us to buy products we don't need. If you pay close attention a large percentage is for negative sum products like unhealthy and addictive fast food.
  • themodelplumber 5y ago
    "Don't need" is relative though. Just like the term lizard brains. They're both simple models. There are lots of cases where ads will sell you things you will need, just like there are lots of cases where humans make wiser choices than lizards. If you want to defeat advertising, you have to acknowledge this side, otherwise you underestimate its brilliance and role in human wellbeing and productivity. Until you can carry its strengths forward without its weaknesses, it will keep propagating as the solution with no end in sight.
    • pjfin123 5y ago
      Clearly not all is bad but they don't have your best interests in mind and I would argue it's overall quite harmful.
      • themodelplumber 5y ago
        "They don't have your best interests in mind" is also relative. Keep in mind the diversity of clients who have or receive money to buy ads, from advocacy groups to attorneys involved in ecological litigation to your local bookstore to a new credit union in your area to a fast food chain to a complete out and out scammer running worthless seminars. Part of the deal is that they still get to work from incentives on their end. But this alone doesn't rule out your interests or even your best interests. The subjective beauty of this is that depending on who you are, even the seminar scammer might be both obvious AND the best news you've heard all week, because you have been waiting for a specific opportunity. BTW I really recommend watching Harrison Ford in The Mosquito Coast. There's a bit of a diamond of truth buried in the story, kind of an anti-anti-ad message that is really important to consider.
• yason 5y ago
  Static ads I can look at or ignore at if I so choose, both on the web and on the street. For reference, just some decades ago static ads in, for example, a computer magazine used to be as much valued content as the magazine articles themselves. Ads become a problem as soon as they become interactive, illuminated, or moving images. Those remove my option to consume the ads at my own pace and choice. Instead, they become attention magnets primarily to be fought against. Just as pop-in ads or flashing/screen-estate-hungry ads are bad on websites do large, bright digital advertisement screens make a horrible streetscape and in public transit video screens totally kill your ride. You can no longer walk or sit in your own thoughts as you're kept occupied to avoid looking at the flashing, moving footage. Google search still mostly does ads right. Not only are they sometimes even relevant but firstly they don't stand out so badly that I'd refuse to take a glance at them. (Not that I ever click on any of them because that would support the ad-business. If I see something interesting I open an incognito window and browse the corresponding company's site directly and look for the bargain/offer - they might still be able to track me, even if partially, but at least there's no direct link via the clicking the ad.)
• paleogizmo 5y ago
  Billboards are interesting because in spite of their near-universal hate, they are about the only remaining form of advertising in print media. I don't especially mind advertising in cities, the subway ads are part of the experience. The terrible billboards in unincorporated areas along the highway are much more annoying, but of course those are much harder to get rid of.
• yhoiseth 5y ago
  An adblocker would be a killer app for AR glasses.
  • truculent 5y ago
    Soon to be replaced by personalised ads, I’m sure
• freen 5y ago
  Increasingly, sites will break without their analytics. Seems bananas to me for your entire functionality be dependent on third parties.
• benburleson 5y ago
  The town I live in (Santa Barbara), does not allow billboards, and it's amazing. It's easy to forget that billboards exist, but every time I travel I am reminded how nice it is to not see them in daily life.
  • jrpear 5y ago
    Oh another Santa Barbara resident! I was initially a little confused reading this thread until I remembered our great regulations.
• krick 5y ago
  I don't know, this doesn't sound like an actionable advice to me. Which is pretty much why I take advertising as a given. And, yes, I don't think one should defend it. I mean, just watch some anti-utopia sci-fi, where everyone has to watch ads about everywhere, then compare it with the direction we are heading to, and reassess your position on "ads being ok". But I just don't see an alternative, and I don't imagine how one can draw a line between what's good and what isn't. In a sense, there cannot be good ads by definition. In a perfect world, there is no ads, because there is no direct competition — and that's the only way. There is only 1 laundry powder, so you don't have to choose. There may be several laundry powders, each one being the best for a specific type of clothing. And there may be even several laundry powders for each type, one simply being cheaper than the other. But there is always one definitive answer, to which one is the best, so you can make your choice just applying the appropriate filters in your groceries app. Similarly, when you choose a smartphone, you don't really need reminded about samsung being the best everywhere you go: you just go to gsmarena (or such), use some filters and make an informed choice. If an app/consultant/oracle/search engine can truly allow you to choose what's best for you, nobody would think about it as an advertisement, and nobody would need to place it anywhere, because you'll consciously ask it when you need an advice. Ads are not about that. They are about shouting your product name loud enough to substitute or even obstruct making an informed choice. This is pretty much necessary, when you have 20 laundry powder brands, that make essentially the same product, neither being the best for anyone. And while it could be unnecessary when selling a phone (since all of them are actually different, even if only in how they look), it isn't in the current market, since they need to persuade you that you need a new phone. So, all ads are bad, but they are unavoidable in a free-market economics, where competition exists. And controlling them doesn't sound ok to me. To be fair, I'm somewhat libertarian-minded in general, so of course it doesn't sound ok to me, but, seriously, where should one draw the line? Is product-placement in movies ok? Is a guy shouting on a street for people come into a restaurant ok? Sure, there is a lot of gradient in-between all this and spoiling the city landscape or even drawing coca cola banners with lasers on the night's sky. But then regulating such things isn't really about regulating ads, since this could be about art projects as well. And, furthermore, one could just call coca-cola banner an art project anyway. So, I don't see what should I be fighting against, and how should I do that. I appreciate that somebody out there is concerned and stands against evil ad-corporations, but I'm almost holding back to not call it futile.
• captaincrunch 5y ago
  because I can't.
• grumple 5y ago
  Some places have banned advertising on billboards and such, Vermont for example: https://www.google.com/amp/s/twistedsifter.com/2014/10/why-vermont-banned-billboards/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/twistedsifter.com/2014/10/why-v...
• jordhy 5y ago
  We are building an app for that, it's called Bitfari. It pays people to disclose preferences and customizes city ads as they go about their day. It also blocks ads the majority of people don't want to see and routes them to different locations, so that public ad space is better allocated. The service has integrated over 200K screens globally and its currently valued at 25M+. You can learn more about it here https://bitfari.org/whitepaper/ https://bitfari.org/whitepaper/
• emodendroket 5y ago
  Well, installing the ad blocker took me five minutes.
• alex_young 5y ago
  > The center post was cut all the way through. The outer posts were each cut more than two thirds through. The great sign rested mostly on its own weight, precariously balanced. A south breeze would make it totter. A child could push it over. Within its gravitational time-space continuum, the billboard’s destiny was predetermined, beyond appeal. The arc of its return to earth could have been computed to within a tolerance of three millimeters. They savored the moment. The intrinsic virtues of free and worthy enterprise. The ghost of Sam Gompers smiled upon their labors. “Push it over,” he said. “You,” she said. “You did most of the work.” “It’s your birthday.” -Monkey Wrench Gang
• autokad 5y ago
  i do not trust cities at all. give them the power to 'block ads' and then what? they have to also block 'hate' and 'disinformation' too right? NO THANKS
• a1371 5y ago
  Unrelated to the topic, I love this website's commenting system: Via email! So simple and practical, don't know why I hadn't thought of that!
• adultSwim 5y ago
  I used to think that real life ad block was the killer app for AR. Now I think that this isn't a problem that needs a technology solution, but instead needs a civic and social strategy. Ads are a huge drain on our collective mental space, for no benefit to most people.
• 0xdeadb00f 5y ago
  There are a few LED billboards around my city. At night they are absolutely BLINDINGLY bright. Who thought it was a good idea to have these high-bright LEDs facing the roads?