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> I think advertising is one of the biggest psychological pollutants in modern society and any possible benefit (??) is vastly outweighed by the cognitive waste

> I think advertising is one of the biggest psychological pollutants in modern society and any possible benefit (??) is vastly outweighed by the cognitive waste incurred by all who are subjected to it. I'm pretty sure ads paid for the vast majority of useful websites that have ever existed, including sites like youtube which just wouldn't exist without them. I tend to think a vast proportion of the freely available information on the web would not have existed without ads and that information was worth the trade off of ads. Nobody has ever come up with a funding model for websites that actually works better than ads.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
If something can't exist in a usable non-destructive form then it simply shouldn't exist. "oh we'll never have routine international flight if we price in all externalities" yeah that kinda fucking sucks oh well RIP vacations to europe. Same deal here basically. "without brain-melting ads that warp our deepest psychic desires into weapons against us we'd never have wikipedia" idk if that's true, doesn't feel true to me, if so though then RIP wikipedia sorry. This shit sucks, if we can't make it not suck we should make it not be.
ndriscoll 4y ago
This is exactly why ad funded businesses should be banned: it's an anticompetitive business practice that hugely distorts markets. It makes it impossible to even charge at cost for a service because your competition is permanently dumping all the way to zero (or even paying the customer) using money from their advertising business. Separately, it incentivizes creating noise. All of the talk about the web becoming poisoned by AI isn't fundamentally about AI; it's about affiliate marketing that allows people to make money on something none of their "customers" would otherwise pay for. Creating content with zero or negative value becomes a viable business, and this drowns out the useful information. Ban affiliate programs and there's no reward for creating this noise anymore. Search engines become more useful. The cost to run them goes down because there's less noise to index and try to filter.
Jochim 4y ago
Slave plantations also lead to the construction and donation of a lot of public buildings in the UK. At the time these would have been a major improvement in the lives of those who benefited from them. However, it's not a strong argument for continuing the practice. I'd honestly rather get rid of advertising. The industry has shown itself far too happy to promote addiction to increase revenue. The fact that some "good" tools have been funded by it Psychological manipulation in general should be much more regulated than it is. Tobacco, gambling, and advertising are the first that come to mind but the food industry is often just as bad, if not worse.

giraffe_lady 4y ago

If something can't exist in a usable non-destructive form then it simply shouldn't exist. "oh we'll never have routine international flight if we price in all externalities" yeah that kinda fucking sucks oh well RIP vacations to europe. Same deal here basically. "without brain-melting ads that warp our deepest psychic desires into weapons against us we'd never have wikipedia" idk if that's true, doesn't feel true to me, if so though then RIP wikipedia sorry. This shit sucks, if we can't make it not suck we should make it not be.

ndriscoll 4y ago

This is exactly why ad funded businesses should be banned: it's an anticompetitive business practice that hugely distorts markets. It makes it impossible to even charge at cost for a service because your competition is permanently dumping all the way to zero (or even paying the customer) using money from their advertising business. Separately, it incentivizes creating noise. All of the talk about the web becoming poisoned by AI isn't fundamentally about AI; it's about affiliate marketing that allows people to make money on something none of their "customers" would otherwise pay for. Creating content with zero or negative value becomes a viable business, and this drowns out the useful information. Ban affiliate programs and there's no reward for creating this noise anymore. Search engines become more useful. The cost to run them goes down because there's less noise to index and try to filter.

Jochim 4y ago

Slave plantations also lead to the construction and donation of a lot of public buildings in the UK. At the time these would have been a major improvement in the lives of those who benefited from them. However, it's not a strong argument for continuing the practice. I'd honestly rather get rid of advertising. The industry has shown itself far too happy to promote addiction to increase revenue. The fact that some "good" tools have been funded by it Psychological manipulation in general should be much more regulated than it is. Tobacco, gambling, and advertising are the first that come to mind but the food industry is often just as bad, if not worse.