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How would it cement existing players? Many people already make purchasing decisions by looking at comprehensive tests from non-profit foundations (https://www.

How would it cement existing players? Many people already make purchasing decisions by looking at comprehensive tests from non-profit foundations (https://www.test.de/ https://www.test.de/) or one of the public broadcasters' (https://www.ndr.de/fernsehen/sendungen/markt/index.html https://www.ndr.de/fernsehen/sendungen/markt/index.html, https://www1.wdr.de/fernsehen/markt/index.html https://www1.wdr.de/fernsehen/markt/index.html), and then do price comparisons with one of the many popular price comparison websites (https://www.idealo.de/ https://www.idealo.de/, https://geizhals.de/ https://geizhals.de/, https://www.hardwareschotte.de/ https://www.hardwareschotte.de/, https://www.preispiraten.de/ https://www.preispiraten.de/). If your product is good, it'll do well in the tests and the price comparison, and be bought. You only need advertising if your product is actually bad and you instead want to convince people to pay for it because you want it associated with a certain image of your customers. But in that case, you're not selling a product, you're selling a status symbol, basically jewellery (e.g., Apple, the sneaker market, etc) And the market of status symbols is harmful to society anyway, so if it gets destroyed as collateral damage of a potential ad ban, that'd be awesome.

satvikpendem 4y ago
When you say "many people," it sounds more like this your workflow for purchasing decisions, not many people's. The way you outlined is so rare that I doubt many people actually do what you describe, unless you want to redefine the word "many." There is a reason advertising exists and works, and you are not realizing that you are a rare, rare exception to that. It is akin to someone using only Gentoo and saying how many people also use it. Yes, some people might use it too, but it is so far outside the range of normality in the population that it does not matter, even if the Gentoo user thinks their bubble is many other people's too.
- kuschku 4y ago
  With "many", I'm actually talking about a majority here in Germany. Stiftung Warentest, Markt, Frontal 21 and similar media are extremely popular. Stiftung Warentest alone has a revenue of over 63 million a year. [1] The consumer magazine NDR Markt had the highest TV ratings of any show in recent years (excluding evening news and special covid news updates), with a market reach of 13.4% in the broadcast area. [2] That's not even counting WDR Markt which has even better ratings. > so far outside the range of normality in the population that it does not matter That's where you're provably wrong. That said, there are bad actors in this market too – especially around the Check24 group (annual revenue exceeding 500 million in 2021) and other actors, which are ranking products less by quality or trustworthy test reports, but instead based on who pays more for ads (see also: Google Shopping). The EU New Deal For Consumers is actually going to influence this quite a bit. The EU plans to regulate comparison sites more strictly, as comparison sites will have a more important role in a future with more restricted, and overall less prevalent advertising. (See also [3], [4]) ________________ [1] https://www.test.de/unternehmen/stiftung-5017075-5843365/ https://www.test.de/unternehmen/stiftung-5017075-5843365/ [2] https://www.ndr.de/der_ndr/zahlen_und_daten/NDR-Fernsehen-Die-erfolgreichsten-Sendungen-2021,ndrdaten147.html https://www.ndr.de/der_ndr/zahlen_und_daten/NDR-Fernsehen-Di... [3] https://www.bundeskartellamt.de/SharedDocs/Meldung/DE/Pressemitteilungen/2019/11_04_2019_Vergleichsportale_Bericht.html?nn=3591286 https://www.bundeskartellamt.de/SharedDocs/Meldung/DE/Presse... [4] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/vergleichsportale-kontrollen-1.4318845 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/vergleichsportale-kon...
  - satvikpendem 4y ago
    We have organizations like Consumer Reports here too in the US, they also make a large amount of money, but that doesn't mean that most people make their purchasing decisions from such organizations. I guarantee if you did some sort of study, most would say they made a primary purchasing decision via advertising.
    - kuschku 4y ago
      According to a GfK Study from April 2021, asking 1001 Germans between 18 and 74, the largest influences on purchasing decisions were: - personal recommendations from friends (35,5%) - independent comparison tests (30,5%) - amazon reviews (23,2%) - media reports (13,7%) - corporate information, including advertising (10,0%)
      - satvikpendem 4y ago
        Many of those can include advertising, such as Amazon placement and reviews, media reports (many PR firms exist to push your product onto media outlets), personal recommendations, and even independent comparison tests (people see an ad, and research it more thoroughly including seeing how it fares on comparison tests, and perhaps tell their friends too). I am not saying that the tests themselves are not independent, nor that people don't use them to make purchasing decisions, but the prevalence of advertising is such that you cannot disentangle its influence from every other. Clearly, even in Germany, ads exist, and if they did not work, then the ads would not exist.
        kuschku 4y ago
        > such as Amazon […] reviews > many PR firms exist to push your product onto media outlets > personal recommendations Half of that is fraud, the other half is at least unethical. Reviews may only be the personal opinion of people who provably purchased the product. False reviews are fraud and explicitly a criminal act. Placing ads in media without explicitly marking it clearly and obviously an ad, so-called “native advertising”, is explicitly a criminal act. > the prevalence of advertising is such that you cannot disentangle its influence from every other. My original argument was that advertising isn't necessary. I think after this discussion it's become obvious that there are many other working and prevalent ways to discover products. In fact, all advertising does is distort and corrupt those existing methods, trying to get me to spend more money than necessary on a worse product. Every cent spent on advertising could've been spent on improving the product instead.

satvikpendem 4y ago

When you say "many people," it sounds more like this your workflow for purchasing decisions, not many people's. The way you outlined is so rare that I doubt many people actually do what you describe, unless you want to redefine the word "many." There is a reason advertising exists and works, and you are not realizing that you are a rare, rare exception to that. It is akin to someone using only Gentoo and saying how many people also use it. Yes, some people might use it too, but it is so far outside the range of normality in the population that it does not matter, even if the Gentoo user thinks their bubble is many other people's too.

kuschku 4y ago
With "many", I'm actually talking about a majority here in Germany. Stiftung Warentest, Markt, Frontal 21 and similar media are extremely popular. Stiftung Warentest alone has a revenue of over 63 million a year. [1] The consumer magazine NDR Markt had the highest TV ratings of any show in recent years (excluding evening news and special covid news updates), with a market reach of 13.4% in the broadcast area. [2] That's not even counting WDR Markt which has even better ratings. > so far outside the range of normality in the population that it does not matter That's where you're provably wrong. That said, there are bad actors in this market too – especially around the Check24 group (annual revenue exceeding 500 million in 2021) and other actors, which are ranking products less by quality or trustworthy test reports, but instead based on who pays more for ads (see also: Google Shopping). The EU New Deal For Consumers is actually going to influence this quite a bit. The EU plans to regulate comparison sites more strictly, as comparison sites will have a more important role in a future with more restricted, and overall less prevalent advertising. (See also [3], [4]) ________________ [1] https://www.test.de/unternehmen/stiftung-5017075-5843365/ https://www.test.de/unternehmen/stiftung-5017075-5843365/ [2] https://www.ndr.de/der_ndr/zahlen_und_daten/NDR-Fernsehen-Die-erfolgreichsten-Sendungen-2021,ndrdaten147.html https://www.ndr.de/der_ndr/zahlen_und_daten/NDR-Fernsehen-Di... [3] https://www.bundeskartellamt.de/SharedDocs/Meldung/DE/Pressemitteilungen/2019/11_04_2019_Vergleichsportale_Bericht.html?nn=3591286 https://www.bundeskartellamt.de/SharedDocs/Meldung/DE/Presse... [4] https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/vergleichsportale-kontrollen-1.4318845 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/vergleichsportale-kon...
- satvikpendem 4y ago
  We have organizations like Consumer Reports here too in the US, they also make a large amount of money, but that doesn't mean that most people make their purchasing decisions from such organizations. I guarantee if you did some sort of study, most would say they made a primary purchasing decision via advertising.
  - kuschku 4y ago
    According to a GfK Study from April 2021, asking 1001 Germans between 18 and 74, the largest influences on purchasing decisions were: - personal recommendations from friends (35,5%) - independent comparison tests (30,5%) - amazon reviews (23,2%) - media reports (13,7%) - corporate information, including advertising (10,0%)
    - satvikpendem 4y ago
      Many of those can include advertising, such as Amazon placement and reviews, media reports (many PR firms exist to push your product onto media outlets), personal recommendations, and even independent comparison tests (people see an ad, and research it more thoroughly including seeing how it fares on comparison tests, and perhaps tell their friends too). I am not saying that the tests themselves are not independent, nor that people don't use them to make purchasing decisions, but the prevalence of advertising is such that you cannot disentangle its influence from every other. Clearly, even in Germany, ads exist, and if they did not work, then the ads would not exist.
      - kuschku 4y ago
        > such as Amazon […] reviews > many PR firms exist to push your product onto media outlets > personal recommendations Half of that is fraud, the other half is at least unethical. Reviews may only be the personal opinion of people who provably purchased the product. False reviews are fraud and explicitly a criminal act. Placing ads in media without explicitly marking it clearly and obviously an ad, so-called “native advertising”, is explicitly a criminal act. > the prevalence of advertising is such that you cannot disentangle its influence from every other. My original argument was that advertising isn't necessary. I think after this discussion it's become obvious that there are many other working and prevalent ways to discover products. In fact, all advertising does is distort and corrupt those existing methods, trying to get me to spend more money than necessary on a worse product. Every cent spent on advertising could've been spent on improving the product instead.