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I was co-founder in the past, and I run a few open source projects. My partner specializes in SEO, and my neighbor is in a leading position in an ad agency. I

I was co-founder in the past, and I run a few open source projects. My partner specializes in SEO, and my neighbor is in a leading position in an ad agency. I understand the advertising industry perfectly well, but that's exactly why I hate it so much. All advertising does is help incumbents, because they can afford to waste money on excessive marketing budgets. So many products are sold on buzzwords, false claims and promoting a lifestyle instead of on merit. Advertising, especially false advertising, needs to be at least heavily regulated if not banned entirely. Even the slightest exaggeration from the truth needs to be punished harshly. It's impossible to compete honestly in a market when your competitors are selling based on AI Cloud Blockchain Smart Industry 4.0 IoT buzzwords.

satvikpendem 4y ago
Sure, I hate false advertising as much as the next person, but by banning all advertising, I'd make no money from my product if I couldn't even tell people my product existed, which is the effect such bans you advocate for would have. To get back to a prior question you asked (which I did not answer it seems) as to why banning advertising would protect incumbents, it's because people already know about them while they wouldn't know about upstarts. Again with the Coke example, a new soda brand would find it exceedingly difficult to gain a foothold if everyone simply defaults to Coke normally. Same as in software, imagine if a new search engine competing with Google came about, but since everyone already uses Google and since the new search engine could not advertise themselves (with such a ban as yours), they will likely fail, even if their product is superior.
- kuschku 4y ago
  Google did not grow through advertising, but through word-of-mouth because they were actually better than the competition. I discovered the soda brands I'm now primarily drinking (Fritz, Premium) the same way. So much of human society works through word-of-mouth. In fact, I'd argue that the type of megacorporation that can only exist grow through advertising is in fact damaging to society in itself. Small, localised SMBs is how we should go into the future.
  - satvikpendem 4y ago
    Small, localized SMBs were the ones most hurt by advertising changes such as between Apple and Facebook. But, let's agree to disagree, I don't think we'll change each other's minds in this conversation. Have a good day and happy new year. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/small-businesses-count-cost-of-apples-privacy-changes https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/small-businesses-cou...

satvikpendem 4y ago

Sure, I hate false advertising as much as the next person, but by banning all advertising, I'd make no money from my product if I couldn't even tell people my product existed, which is the effect such bans you advocate for would have. To get back to a prior question you asked (which I did not answer it seems) as to why banning advertising would protect incumbents, it's because people already know about them while they wouldn't know about upstarts. Again with the Coke example, a new soda brand would find it exceedingly difficult to gain a foothold if everyone simply defaults to Coke normally. Same as in software, imagine if a new search engine competing with Google came about, but since everyone already uses Google and since the new search engine could not advertise themselves (with such a ban as yours), they will likely fail, even if their product is superior.

kuschku 4y ago
Google did not grow through advertising, but through word-of-mouth because they were actually better than the competition. I discovered the soda brands I'm now primarily drinking (Fritz, Premium) the same way. So much of human society works through word-of-mouth. In fact, I'd argue that the type of megacorporation that can only exist grow through advertising is in fact damaging to society in itself. Small, localised SMBs is how we should go into the future.
- satvikpendem 4y ago
  Small, localized SMBs were the ones most hurt by advertising changes such as between Apple and Facebook. But, let's agree to disagree, I don't think we'll change each other's minds in this conversation. Have a good day and happy new year. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/small-businesses-count-cost-of-apples-privacy-changes https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/small-businesses-cou...