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I would agree with you that "most advertising" (your words) is currently immoral in that it tends to be a sub-par product pushed out the door for reasons based

I would agree with you that "most advertising" (your words) is currently immoral in that it tends to be a sub-par product pushed out the door for reasons based in greed. Or: *Spam* But I don't think that is due to advertising in general being "default immoral". There is nothing fundamentally immoral about accepting payment in exchange for raising awareness of something. As an aside: Accepting money in exchange for promotion without making it clear that you have been paid is certainly immoral.

ketralnis 4y ago
> tends to be a sub-par product pushed out the door for reasons based in greed I don't think bad products are immoral, just bad. > There is nothing fundamentally immoral about accepting payment in exchange for raising awareness of something. There's a difference between _paying to get something_, and _paying me to do something_. For instance, we can probably agree that paying to receive a stolen television and paying me to build you a television are different even if the buyer-side transaction characteristics are the same. That's where advertising breaks down in morality. When party A pays party B to receive party C's attention without party C agreeing to be a part of this transaction at all. That's why I say "most": sometimes party C is in fact knowingly participating. Maybe they get something in exchange for their attention (access to a costly-to-run website, or a reduced rate on an otherwise costly-to-print magazine). Obviously that line is fuzzy for something like the App Store where the money is going to Apple's margins which are kinda sorta part of the product pricing but clearly the price of the hardware isn't going down but Apple's clearly within their rights to set their own pricing and...? It's fuzzy for sure but I sure didn't knowingly agree to be advertised to on a device that I bought before they started doing this. And consent is hard to talk about in a duopoly environment as well. Anyway again I'm not here to argue with you about it and I don't care one way or the other if you agree with me. I just wanted to point out that your axioms about "fundamentally immoral" aren't everybody's axioms.
w1nst0nsm1th 4y ago
The most you pay for advertising, the less you pay for the product. If you have a 10$ capital to start a company and you allocate 9$ for advertising (and marketing), you're left with 1$ to build a shitty product. It's a simple mathematical formula : For a given selling price tag, the amount dedicated for advertising your product is inversely proportional to the amount dedicated to build your product.

ketralnis 4y ago

> tends to be a sub-par product pushed out the door for reasons based in greed I don't think bad products are immoral, just bad. > There is nothing fundamentally immoral about accepting payment in exchange for raising awareness of something. There's a difference between _paying to get something_, and _paying me to do something_. For instance, we can probably agree that paying to receive a stolen television and paying me to build you a television are different even if the buyer-side transaction characteristics are the same. That's where advertising breaks down in morality. When party A pays party B to receive party C's attention without party C agreeing to be a part of this transaction at all. That's why I say "most": sometimes party C is in fact knowingly participating. Maybe they get something in exchange for their attention (access to a costly-to-run website, or a reduced rate on an otherwise costly-to-print magazine). Obviously that line is fuzzy for something like the App Store where the money is going to Apple's margins which are kinda sorta part of the product pricing but clearly the price of the hardware isn't going down but Apple's clearly within their rights to set their own pricing and...? It's fuzzy for sure but I sure didn't knowingly agree to be advertised to on a device that I bought before they started doing this. And consent is hard to talk about in a duopoly environment as well. Anyway again I'm not here to argue with you about it and I don't care one way or the other if you agree with me. I just wanted to point out that your axioms about "fundamentally immoral" aren't everybody's axioms.

w1nst0nsm1th 4y ago

The most you pay for advertising, the less you pay for the product. If you have a 10$ capital to start a company and you allocate 9$ for advertising (and marketing), you're left with 1$ to build a shitty product. It's a simple mathematical formula : For a given selling price tag, the amount dedicated for advertising your product is inversely proportional to the amount dedicated to build your product.