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I see this dynamic in tech all the time: "We'd like to pay/invest in you tremendous amounts of money to make X more efficient": yes, absolutely we know what X

I see this dynamic in tech all the time: "We'd like to pay/invest in you tremendous amounts of money to make X more efficient": yes, absolutely we know what X is and we understand scaling it is immensely valuable and fundamentally changes everything. "We'd like to regulate X, making it safer, and therefore harder or even impossible to do": that's ridiculous, you could always do X, what even is X anyway, don't tread on me, yadda yadda. It's so transparent to me now, and I've passed this curse onto you. Nothing else in law works this way. No definition is ironclad. This is what legislators, agencies, and courts are for. We all know this.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
pembrook 2y ago
Out of all of HN’s biases, the violent hatred of advertising is by far one of the most misguided. Human attention is scarce. Demand for that attention is endless. Scarcity + demand creates a natural market by default, meaning you must use brutal authoritarianism to disrupt it entirely (vs just regulating with guardrails). Disrupting natural markets with authoritarianism usually ends up worse than any downsides of the decentralized market regulation of that scarcity. Instead of something that attempts to land on fairness (even if imperfect), no market at all guarantees unfairness. Advertising puts a price on the scarce commodity of attention in broad strokes, and it not always, but generally trends toward making the highest value messages for both the audience and advertiser get seen over lower value messages in any given situation (because those are the ones that can afford the market clearing price on said advertising). I know, please respond with all of your “all these times it didn’t work like that!” throw-the-baby out-with-the-bathwater Anecdotes. Like all markets, we should regulate advertising to ensure it doesn’t get out of control. But to ban it outright would require an extreme policing of all speech at all levels of society. Hence why this is a non-serious, silly idea.
- TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
  What is a "natural market"? Please explain with examples from nature. Your argument begs the question. Attention is indeed scarce, but that's because ad tech has created an attention economy. Assuming that advertising is the best use of human attention is - how can I put this politely? - really quite eccentric.
  - grandempire 2y ago
    > Please explain with examples from nature. In nature there is limited access to food, water, mates, and shelter. Economizing is the process of dealing with scarce resources.
    - salawat 2y ago
      Economizing is a uniquely human delusion whereby you suddenly think that principles of human centric markets somehow ascend to a primal force of the universe and aren't just a coping mechanism we use to try to peaceably coexist with one another without sinking all our time into killing one another to decrease competition like the rest of the life on the planet. Nature doesn't do markets. We do. If you apply market thinking to the wrong things, bad things happen. You don't serve the market. The market serves you.
      - grandempire 2y ago
        > Economizing is a uniquely human delusion No. > Nature doesn't do markets. We do Yes. It’s a social tool for coping with scarcity. Violence is another.
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y ago
  << the violent hatred of advertising is by far one of the most misguided. I am willing to give you that there is hatred. I don't know if it is violent, but there is actual hatred. I do not believe it is misguided. As the OP mentions, a lot of people on this site saw how the sausage is made. << Human attention is scarce. True, but each ad makes it even more scarce as humans instinctively try to filter out noise suggesting that ads do not belong in our vicinity. << Demand for that attention is endless. I disagree, but I do not want to pursue this line of argumentation, because it is a deep rabbit hole with a lot that can trip it ( and I sadly do not have time this Sunday ). << meaning you must use brutal authoritarianism to disrupt it entirely You may be onto something. Current breed of corporations are effectively nation-states that require focus of an entity nearly as singular. Hmm. << no market at all guarantees unfairness. Meh, I saw the fairness and I think I am ok with its absence from the world at large. << generally trends toward making the highest value messages for both the audience and advertiser get seen over lower value messages in any given situation Hardly, "make your penis bigger" likely being most obvious example. << please respond with all of your “all these times it didn’t work like that!” throw-the-baby out-with-the-bathwater Anecdotes. I think you are misunderstanding something. The reason OP even considers such a drastic move is because throwing the baby out with the water is easier than attempt at gentle removal. I will add one more thing though. I was in a meeting with non-technical audience yesterday and, oddly, advertising and face tracking in apps came up. This is all starting to trickle down to regular people, which does suggest some level of correction is coming. << we should regulate advertising to ensure it doesn’t get out of control It is already out of control, but adtech managed to normalize it. << But to ban it outright would require an extreme policing of all speech at all levels of society. Hardly, maybe you could argue for freedom of association as we are talking mostly third parties, but the business would still be able to huff and puff as much as they want.
- bondarchuk 2y ago
  Quite an interesting idea tbh, however if you want to frame it in commodity terms then you should also admit that currently, this very valuable commodity is taken from its owners without their consent. You could compare it to e.g. human labour, maybe: sure, there will always be a market for it, yet we allow labour to be extracted from people only in a heavily regulated framework and don't just let it be taken by force from them. Or property: there is a near infinite demand for physical objects, yet when I own a physical object you nevertheless can't just take it from me. So it should be with our attention.
  - luckylion 2y ago
    Is it taken without consent? Don't you consent when you watch YouTube, or use some ad-funded site? Don't you get something (the content) in return? There are alternatives, but most people choose to pay with attention, so that's where creators are being pulled to. But that doesn't mean that you're forced to consume it.
    - johannes1234321 2y ago
      In practical terms there isn't an alternative. Sure there are websites without ads, but they won't tell me about what happens in my community. Sure, I could go to the town hall and watch sessions, but it's not practical. Also: Even alternatives to YouTube will end up in the ad market. Just see the different streaming services where one already pays and who are rolling out ads. And well, YouTube still is the central place with all the videos. The only choice I have is using an ad blocker, which could be seen as amoral.
      - Nemi 2y ago
        I hate ads as much as anyone (full disclosure, I use an ad blocker), but with all due respect, the reason there is no “practical” alternative to a service displaying ads is – someone has to pay for it. And before you say “I am paying or I am willing to pay”, it often costs more than you are willing to pay to run these services. When you say it is “not practical” to go to the town hall, what you are really saying is “my time is valuable and I want someone else to expend their valuable time recording that information and disseminating it to me at low or no cost to me”. Believe me, I understand the desire. But if we were all honest, someone has to pay for this and capitalism has decided that this is the “best” way to do that.
- Ygg2 2y ago
  Replace attention for kidneys. Or not being killed with swords. See how you argument works out. Just because something is highly sought after e.g. kidneys and protection from violence doesn't mean we should commoditize it. See American health care. Some resources are inflexible and allow infinite rent seeking opportunities.
- B1FF_PSUVM 2y ago
  Just tax the hell out of it, to pay for the environmental damages.
- camgunz 2y ago
  Plutonium is scarce. Demand for that plutonium is endless. Scarcity + demand creates a natural market by default, meaning you must use brutal authoritarianism to disrupt it entirely (vs just regulating with guardrails). Disrupting natural markets with authoritarianism usually ends up worse than any downsides of the decentralized market regulation of that scarcity. Instead of something that attempts to land on fairness (even if imperfect), no market at all guarantees unfairness. The black market puts a price on the scarce commodity of plutonium in broad strokes, and it not always, but generally trends toward making the highest purity plutonium for both the bombed and bomber get used over lower purity plutonium in any given situation (because those are the ones who are winning the nuclear war with said plutonium). I know, please respond with all of your “all these times it didn’t work like that!” throw-the-baby out-with-the-bathwater Anecdotes. Like all markets, we should regulate plutonium to ensure it doesn’t get out of control. But to ban it outright would require an extreme policing of all weapons at all levels of society. Hence why this is a non-serious, silly idea.
  - pembrook 2y ago
    Plutonium is scarce, but demand for it is even more scarce. Hence why most of the plutonium that exists is untapped. It’s not even a functioning market because of this, it requires governments to prop up its production. Plutonium is one of the most niche things ever. All humans and businesses desire human attention, whereas virtually nobody desires plutonium. The amount of people who can do anything with it amounts to likely 0.000001% of the population. This is not a good rebuttal.
    - camgunz 2y ago
      Ugh, the point is that your argument "if there's a market for something there's no point banning it" is special pleading for advertising. If you put other powerful things in there (plutonium, human organs) you quickly see this. But, sure, let's do it the boring way. > Human attention is scarce. Compared to what? Do you mean limited, highly desired, or what? Also I'd say there's 8 billion human attentions. That doesn't sound scarce to me. > Demand for that attention is endless. "Endless"? Surely not. What if I have it all? > Scarcity + demand creates a natural market by default Doesn't this mean almost everything we care about is a market? The supply of almost everything (actually everything?) is limited, qed right? > meaning you must use brutal authoritarianism to disrupt it entirely (vs just regulating with guardrails). I don't think this means anything. What's an example of using brutal authoritarianism to disrupt other markets?Cocaine? Human organs? > Disrupting natural markets with authoritarianism usually ends up worse than any downsides of the decentralized market regulation of that scarcity. Again if there are any concrete examples I would imagine most people would agree that stuff should be banned. > Instead of something that attempts to land on fairness (even if imperfect), no market at all guarantees unfairness. Wait I thought scarcity + demand poofs a market, how can there be scarcity + demand and no market? Isn't this the foundation of your argument? > Advertising puts a price on the scarce commodity of attention in broad strokes, The strokes are way too broad. If you're a magazine or a road sign, you're selling the slice of attention you're getting, which isn't anywhere near the whole attention market. Even if you're something like FB or TikTok, you're max getting like 70% of someone's attention. But then is influencer placement more effective than movie product placement? What about an interstitial ad? Blah blah blah. What happens when people are offline, like making breakfast or reading a book (things lots of people still do, believe it or not). This is a market in such a loose sense it loses meaning, but the worst part is the people who own attention aren't getting paid! At least in a human organ market I get cash for my kidneys. Where's the site I can go to where I just watch ads and rack up sweet cheddar? > and it not always, but generally trends toward making the highest value messages for both the audience and advertiser get seen over lower value messages in any given situation (because those are the ones that can afford the market clearing price on said advertising). "Value" for who? You've done no work to establish the value of advertising to the audience. Again, less of a market and more of a sheep shearing operation. > But to ban it outright would require an extreme policing of all speech at all levels of society. You might be surprised to learn there's a pretty rich diversity of advertising bans. Here in The Hague we ban ads for meat and fossil fuels. Things are still OK!
- Shacklz 2y ago
  > Out of all of HN’s biases, the violent hatred of advertising is by far one of the most misguided. Interesting, I perceive it exactly the other way around. I'm surprised this thread is as high up as it is, usually as per my perception, anti-advertisement sentiment gets shot down hard, presumably because a large part of the HN-crowd works for companies like google or facebook which rely on ads as a business model, or start-ups whose products are only used because users were shown ads for them. My take: The human mind is hackable; it's just too easy and efficient to appeal to our emotions and most basic instincts. And while it was mostly fine to ignore it while it was "only" increasing consumerism, we currently see what happens when the same is applied to elections, with predictably terrible outcomes. Your stance is still the old HN stance; the market actually works, any change that would impact the status quo is neither welcome nor needed, etc. etc. - this was the gospel for at least a decade, but we're finally awakening to the fact that hey, maybe this is actually bad, even if it made loads of money for many of us. Maybe it led us to the awful situation we're currently in, with big, ad-based monopolies, an absolute clownshow in the highest of offices and CEOs of said monopolies playing the lackeys. Most big social developments in human history were non-serious and silly to many people before they actually happened.
- Benjammer 2y ago
  I think the only reason that demand is endless is due to how profitable it is to sell that attention to advertisers...
- trinsic2 2y ago
  > Hence why this is a non-serious, silly idea. I don't know if I go that far. I can see arguments for both sides of the issue. And at the same time, I know it would be impossible to do, but I could see that not having advertising would fix a lot of problems in our society. And yes, advertising is a broad term. Maybe we have clear rules around what's advertising and what's propaganda.
- TFYS 2y ago
  > generally trends toward making the highest value messages for both the audience and advertiser get seen over lower value messages in any given situation (because those are the ones that can afford the market clearing price on said advertising). This is true, but only for the set of messages that produce value that can be captured by the advertiser. This set is a small subset of messages that produce value. For example, a message about the benefits of excercise/socializing/climate action would produce a lot of value, but not in a form that any single advertiser can capture. So a lot of high value messages don't get produced in the current system, and might have a better chance in a more "natural" attention economy. Advertising also increases the value of a product, so the value of things whose value can be captured by advertisers will be inflated when compared to their value in an environment without advertising.
- bccdee 2y ago
  > natural market by default, meaning you must use brutal authoritarianism to disrupt it entirely Ok? If that's how we define "brutal authoritarianism," I guess I'm a brutal authoritarian. There's a natural market for mob hitmen (scarce + in-demand)—are you opposed to a "brutal authoritarian" crackdown on those too? > Disrupting natural markets with authoritarianism usually ends up worse than any downsides of the decentralized market regulation of that scarcity. Citation very much needed. Suppliers of lead paint, asbestos, ozone-destroying aerosols, contaminated foodstuffs, etc. did not regulate themselves in a decentralized manner. In fact, take virtually any toxic contaminant or hazardous product and you'll usually find that the market colluded to cover up evidence of harm, rather than "self-regulating." > generally trends toward making the highest value messages for both the audience and advertiser Absolutely not. Consumers do not exert demand for certain types of ads in preference to others. There's no mechanism for ads to converge toward high audience value. It's advertiser value that is optimized for, often to the detriment of consumers (e.g. advertisements for profitable scams, which have negative value). Even if you want to argue that advertisements inform consumers to some extent, that's probably outweighed by the extent that they misinform consumers. Consider infomercial products: Regular kitchen knives don't need an advertisement because demand is inelastic. If you're cooking, you need a knife; nobody has to promote the idea of knives. But the "slap-chop" is a product with elastic demand, and thus the marginal value of advertising is much greater for them. Hence, they can afford to buy up huge amounts of ad space to drum up demand for an essentially worthless product. The advertising ecosystem has perverse incentive to promote scams. > But to ban it outright would require an extreme policing of all speech at all levels of society. There are a lot of noxious and socially destructive things which are not practical to ban.
  - pembrook 2y ago
    You've taken small snippets of my text and stood them up as lone straw-men to argue against, instead of arguing against my actual premise. No, murder is not comparable to advertising. And no, not once did I ever say the phrase "self-regulating" nor did I argue against regulation of advertising. Your fundamental belief (and the prevailing view on HN) that advertising is a scam and intended to "misinform" is incorrect. Apparently I need to say this again because it's hard to grasp the concept of nuance--Are some advertisements scams? Absolutely. The market is not perfectly efficient, but again, markets trend in the direction of efficiency over long periods. Ultimately, the vast majority of advertisements you see are for the products that are the most desired by people, hence why they can profitably continue advertising over time. Just because you aren't interested in the product, doesn't mean it's a scam . Enough people in the audience of whatever media you consume think otherwise, hence why the company is advertising there. Again, there are absolutely stupid companies wasting money on stupid ads, but they tend to get outcompeted by the smarter ones. I get it though, giving people you believe are less intelligent than you the freedom to make decisions is frustrating. Even in your example of the slap-chop, which you say is a "worthless product," funny enough, I literally just used a similar product yesterday to dice a large amount of onions quickly. Guess I'm stupid and I need an authoritarian like you to tell me a smarter way to live. Alternatively though, the idea that knife makers don't promote their products is just hilarious to me. The market for kitchen knives is extremely competitive and just because the advertising doesn't take the form of a 30 second TV spot from the 1990s doesn't mean they just throw their products on the market with zero promotion. How do you think certain brands even appear on the shelves of the stores you shop in? You're gonna hate this too...turns out shelf space is scarce so shelf space is a market as well, and it's more of an economic calculation than one of technical passion. Oh no not again!
- const_cast 2y ago
  > Human attention is scarce. Demand for that attention is endless. Scarcity + demand creates a natural market by default, meaning you must use brutal authoritarianism to disrupt it entirely This logic is just bad, plain and simple. You know what else has a high demand? Drugs. So I guess fuck it, right? Sell heroin in Walmart, who cares. It's a "natural market". Of course people want to shoot up, it feels fucking amazing and humans are hard-wired to do shit that makes them feel good. So let's just give up and do nothing. Yeah, in fact go ahead and advertise heroin on TVs. Yeah, go ahead and give it to infants too, let's get them young. After all, it's a natural market or something. Please, I am begging you, stop bending over so severely for "markets". Sit back, and think about consequences. If something ONLY HARMS PEOPLE, why are we doing it? Seriously, if everyone is a loser then why are we here? We don't have to make life hell just because capitalism would like it! That's a choice!
- asdf6969 2y ago
  > Advertising puts a price on the scarce commodity of attention Why should I be allowed to sell my attention any more than I can sell my own kidneys? It's even worse because I let other people sell my attention for me and get nothing back. What point are you trying to make? The market for manipulating my behaviour shouldn't exist at all so I really don't care how efficient it is > the highest value messages for both the audience.. Obviously not. If this was true then people would pay to see more ads and everyone knows that doesn't happen
- marssaxman 2y ago
  There are forms of advertising which are consensual - someone who buys a copy of Vogue presumably does so because they want to see the products being advertised - but the advertising I would ban is that which responds to the demand for attention by flat-out stealing it. If it's not consensual, it should not be legal. > you must use brutal authoritarianism to disrupt it entirely I'm not usually a fan of brutal authoritarianism, but you're making it sound pretty good.
grandempire 2y ago
One reason why the definition is more important when it comes to outlawing behavior is that when you get it wrong you are actually preventing people from doing something that is important and valuable to them. Ironically this is something lawyers and judges would pick up on immediately. You need an underlying principle of harm that can be applied consistently.
- cratermoon 2y ago
  > you are actually preventing people from doing something that is important and valuable to them. There are many things individuals will consider "important and valuable to them" that are harmful to others. We prevent individuals from harming others for their own self-gain because that's what societies do.
  - bccdee 2y ago
    This is an argument against people having rights at all. "Oh, you think you're entitled to X? Well, in certain scenarios, X might cause harm. You might use free speech to advocate for something bad, or leverage your immunity to unjust search & seizure to conceal evidence of a crime." Consider that the author considers propaganda to be a form of advertising, and suggests we ban propaganda. Well, Fox News is is probably one of the most influential sources of propaganda in our era, and they're just publishing news with a strong political slant. This anti-propaganda law effectively would have to make it illegal to publish political opinion pieces. That would be absurdly draconian. For the record, I'm strongly anti-advertising, but a complete ban on advertisement would be impossible to construct because you can't draw a sharp line between ads and free expression.
    - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
      > Well, Fox News is is probably one of the most influential sources of propaganda in our era, and they're just publishing news with a strong political slant. Actually (and hilariously) Fox News according to their own court filings do not publish news, they are an entertainment product. And I say ironically because that's exactly the mechanism people are clamoring for in this discussion: it's the courts. Lawyers argue and courts eventually decide definitions all the time, because it's highly impractical to belabor and endlessly debate passing new laws because we don't have ironclad definitions in them beforehand. If you want my humble opinion, in a legal/ban sense, I would define advertising as: > Communicative material that is placed strategically by publishers or media for a price/by way of other agreement to drive awareness of products or services with the intent to generate attention and sales of said products or services.
cdecl 2y ago
The difference is that often, particular things are more concretely defined. A ban on advertising might be so onerous you wouldn't even be able to 'advertise' your FOSS projects on HN. In what way could you learn about novel commercial things in the absence of advertising? Word of mouth alone?
- NeutralCrane 2y ago
  I don’t think it would be onerous nor ill defined. Simply make it illegal to pay someone to or receive payment for making a public announcement for a product, service, or brand. If no payment is involved, it’s fine. People are free to promote their own or others products on social media, YouTube, the side of their car or house, so long as they aren’t paid to do so. That is hardly any more convoluted or ill-defined than dozens of other laws on the books. And yes, word of mouth and non-paid advertising is absolutely capable of spreading awareness on its own.
  - cdecl 2y ago
    Does giving someone the product count as a payment?
    - ajolly 2y ago
      In the US, yes that would count his taxable income so I'd also consider it a payment.

deleted 2y ago

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pembrook 2y ago

Out of all of HN’s biases, the violent hatred of advertising is by far one of the most misguided. Human attention is scarce. Demand for that attention is endless. Scarcity + demand creates a natural market by default, meaning you must use brutal authoritarianism to disrupt it entirely (vs just regulating with guardrails). Disrupting natural markets with authoritarianism usually ends up worse than any downsides of the decentralized market regulation of that scarcity. Instead of something that attempts to land on fairness (even if imperfect), no market at all guarantees unfairness. Advertising puts a price on the scarce commodity of attention in broad strokes, and it not always, but generally trends toward making the highest value messages for both the audience and advertiser get seen over lower value messages in any given situation (because those are the ones that can afford the market clearing price on said advertising). I know, please respond with all of your “all these times it didn’t work like that!” throw-the-baby out-with-the-bathwater Anecdotes. Like all markets, we should regulate advertising to ensure it doesn’t get out of control. But to ban it outright would require an extreme policing of all speech at all levels of society. Hence why this is a non-serious, silly idea.

TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
What is a "natural market"? Please explain with examples from nature. Your argument begs the question. Attention is indeed scarce, but that's because ad tech has created an attention economy. Assuming that advertising is the best use of human attention is - how can I put this politely? - really quite eccentric.
- grandempire 2y ago
  > Please explain with examples from nature. In nature there is limited access to food, water, mates, and shelter. Economizing is the process of dealing with scarce resources.
  - salawat 2y ago
    Economizing is a uniquely human delusion whereby you suddenly think that principles of human centric markets somehow ascend to a primal force of the universe and aren't just a coping mechanism we use to try to peaceably coexist with one another without sinking all our time into killing one another to decrease competition like the rest of the life on the planet. Nature doesn't do markets. We do. If you apply market thinking to the wrong things, bad things happen. You don't serve the market. The market serves you.
    - grandempire 2y ago
      > Economizing is a uniquely human delusion No. > Nature doesn't do markets. We do Yes. It’s a social tool for coping with scarcity. Violence is another.
A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y ago
<< the violent hatred of advertising is by far one of the most misguided. I am willing to give you that there is hatred. I don't know if it is violent, but there is actual hatred. I do not believe it is misguided. As the OP mentions, a lot of people on this site saw how the sausage is made. << Human attention is scarce. True, but each ad makes it even more scarce as humans instinctively try to filter out noise suggesting that ads do not belong in our vicinity. << Demand for that attention is endless. I disagree, but I do not want to pursue this line of argumentation, because it is a deep rabbit hole with a lot that can trip it ( and I sadly do not have time this Sunday ). << meaning you must use brutal authoritarianism to disrupt it entirely You may be onto something. Current breed of corporations are effectively nation-states that require focus of an entity nearly as singular. Hmm. << no market at all guarantees unfairness. Meh, I saw the fairness and I think I am ok with its absence from the world at large. << generally trends toward making the highest value messages for both the audience and advertiser get seen over lower value messages in any given situation Hardly, "make your penis bigger" likely being most obvious example. << please respond with all of your “all these times it didn’t work like that!” throw-the-baby out-with-the-bathwater Anecdotes. I think you are misunderstanding something. The reason OP even considers such a drastic move is because throwing the baby out with the water is easier than attempt at gentle removal. I will add one more thing though. I was in a meeting with non-technical audience yesterday and, oddly, advertising and face tracking in apps came up. This is all starting to trickle down to regular people, which does suggest some level of correction is coming. << we should regulate advertising to ensure it doesn’t get out of control It is already out of control, but adtech managed to normalize it. << But to ban it outright would require an extreme policing of all speech at all levels of society. Hardly, maybe you could argue for freedom of association as we are talking mostly third parties, but the business would still be able to huff and puff as much as they want.
bondarchuk 2y ago
Quite an interesting idea tbh, however if you want to frame it in commodity terms then you should also admit that currently, this very valuable commodity is taken from its owners without their consent. You could compare it to e.g. human labour, maybe: sure, there will always be a market for it, yet we allow labour to be extracted from people only in a heavily regulated framework and don't just let it be taken by force from them. Or property: there is a near infinite demand for physical objects, yet when I own a physical object you nevertheless can't just take it from me. So it should be with our attention.
- luckylion 2y ago
  Is it taken without consent? Don't you consent when you watch YouTube, or use some ad-funded site? Don't you get something (the content) in return? There are alternatives, but most people choose to pay with attention, so that's where creators are being pulled to. But that doesn't mean that you're forced to consume it.
  - johannes1234321 2y ago
    In practical terms there isn't an alternative. Sure there are websites without ads, but they won't tell me about what happens in my community. Sure, I could go to the town hall and watch sessions, but it's not practical. Also: Even alternatives to YouTube will end up in the ad market. Just see the different streaming services where one already pays and who are rolling out ads. And well, YouTube still is the central place with all the videos. The only choice I have is using an ad blocker, which could be seen as amoral.
    - Nemi 2y ago
      I hate ads as much as anyone (full disclosure, I use an ad blocker), but with all due respect, the reason there is no “practical” alternative to a service displaying ads is – someone has to pay for it. And before you say “I am paying or I am willing to pay”, it often costs more than you are willing to pay to run these services. When you say it is “not practical” to go to the town hall, what you are really saying is “my time is valuable and I want someone else to expend their valuable time recording that information and disseminating it to me at low or no cost to me”. Believe me, I understand the desire. But if we were all honest, someone has to pay for this and capitalism has decided that this is the “best” way to do that.
Ygg2 2y ago
Replace attention for kidneys. Or not being killed with swords. See how you argument works out. Just because something is highly sought after e.g. kidneys and protection from violence doesn't mean we should commoditize it. See American health care. Some resources are inflexible and allow infinite rent seeking opportunities.
B1FF_PSUVM 2y ago
Just tax the hell out of it, to pay for the environmental damages.
camgunz 2y ago
Plutonium is scarce. Demand for that plutonium is endless. Scarcity + demand creates a natural market by default, meaning you must use brutal authoritarianism to disrupt it entirely (vs just regulating with guardrails). Disrupting natural markets with authoritarianism usually ends up worse than any downsides of the decentralized market regulation of that scarcity. Instead of something that attempts to land on fairness (even if imperfect), no market at all guarantees unfairness. The black market puts a price on the scarce commodity of plutonium in broad strokes, and it not always, but generally trends toward making the highest purity plutonium for both the bombed and bomber get used over lower purity plutonium in any given situation (because those are the ones who are winning the nuclear war with said plutonium). I know, please respond with all of your “all these times it didn’t work like that!” throw-the-baby out-with-the-bathwater Anecdotes. Like all markets, we should regulate plutonium to ensure it doesn’t get out of control. But to ban it outright would require an extreme policing of all weapons at all levels of society. Hence why this is a non-serious, silly idea.
- pembrook 2y ago
  Plutonium is scarce, but demand for it is even more scarce. Hence why most of the plutonium that exists is untapped. It’s not even a functioning market because of this, it requires governments to prop up its production. Plutonium is one of the most niche things ever. All humans and businesses desire human attention, whereas virtually nobody desires plutonium. The amount of people who can do anything with it amounts to likely 0.000001% of the population. This is not a good rebuttal.
  - camgunz 2y ago
    Ugh, the point is that your argument "if there's a market for something there's no point banning it" is special pleading for advertising. If you put other powerful things in there (plutonium, human organs) you quickly see this. But, sure, let's do it the boring way. > Human attention is scarce. Compared to what? Do you mean limited, highly desired, or what? Also I'd say there's 8 billion human attentions. That doesn't sound scarce to me. > Demand for that attention is endless. "Endless"? Surely not. What if I have it all? > Scarcity + demand creates a natural market by default Doesn't this mean almost everything we care about is a market? The supply of almost everything (actually everything?) is limited, qed right? > meaning you must use brutal authoritarianism to disrupt it entirely (vs just regulating with guardrails). I don't think this means anything. What's an example of using brutal authoritarianism to disrupt other markets?Cocaine? Human organs? > Disrupting natural markets with authoritarianism usually ends up worse than any downsides of the decentralized market regulation of that scarcity. Again if there are any concrete examples I would imagine most people would agree that stuff should be banned. > Instead of something that attempts to land on fairness (even if imperfect), no market at all guarantees unfairness. Wait I thought scarcity + demand poofs a market, how can there be scarcity + demand and no market? Isn't this the foundation of your argument? > Advertising puts a price on the scarce commodity of attention in broad strokes, The strokes are way too broad. If you're a magazine or a road sign, you're selling the slice of attention you're getting, which isn't anywhere near the whole attention market. Even if you're something like FB or TikTok, you're max getting like 70% of someone's attention. But then is influencer placement more effective than movie product placement? What about an interstitial ad? Blah blah blah. What happens when people are offline, like making breakfast or reading a book (things lots of people still do, believe it or not). This is a market in such a loose sense it loses meaning, but the worst part is the people who own attention aren't getting paid! At least in a human organ market I get cash for my kidneys. Where's the site I can go to where I just watch ads and rack up sweet cheddar? > and it not always, but generally trends toward making the highest value messages for both the audience and advertiser get seen over lower value messages in any given situation (because those are the ones that can afford the market clearing price on said advertising). "Value" for who? You've done no work to establish the value of advertising to the audience. Again, less of a market and more of a sheep shearing operation. > But to ban it outright would require an extreme policing of all speech at all levels of society. You might be surprised to learn there's a pretty rich diversity of advertising bans. Here in The Hague we ban ads for meat and fossil fuels. Things are still OK!
Shacklz 2y ago
> Out of all of HN’s biases, the violent hatred of advertising is by far one of the most misguided. Interesting, I perceive it exactly the other way around. I'm surprised this thread is as high up as it is, usually as per my perception, anti-advertisement sentiment gets shot down hard, presumably because a large part of the HN-crowd works for companies like google or facebook which rely on ads as a business model, or start-ups whose products are only used because users were shown ads for them. My take: The human mind is hackable; it's just too easy and efficient to appeal to our emotions and most basic instincts. And while it was mostly fine to ignore it while it was "only" increasing consumerism, we currently see what happens when the same is applied to elections, with predictably terrible outcomes. Your stance is still the old HN stance; the market actually works, any change that would impact the status quo is neither welcome nor needed, etc. etc. - this was the gospel for at least a decade, but we're finally awakening to the fact that hey, maybe this is actually bad, even if it made loads of money for many of us. Maybe it led us to the awful situation we're currently in, with big, ad-based monopolies, an absolute clownshow in the highest of offices and CEOs of said monopolies playing the lackeys. Most big social developments in human history were non-serious and silly to many people before they actually happened.
Benjammer 2y ago
I think the only reason that demand is endless is due to how profitable it is to sell that attention to advertisers...
trinsic2 2y ago
> Hence why this is a non-serious, silly idea. I don't know if I go that far. I can see arguments for both sides of the issue. And at the same time, I know it would be impossible to do, but I could see that not having advertising would fix a lot of problems in our society. And yes, advertising is a broad term. Maybe we have clear rules around what's advertising and what's propaganda.
TFYS 2y ago
> generally trends toward making the highest value messages for both the audience and advertiser get seen over lower value messages in any given situation (because those are the ones that can afford the market clearing price on said advertising). This is true, but only for the set of messages that produce value that can be captured by the advertiser. This set is a small subset of messages that produce value. For example, a message about the benefits of excercise/socializing/climate action would produce a lot of value, but not in a form that any single advertiser can capture. So a lot of high value messages don't get produced in the current system, and might have a better chance in a more "natural" attention economy. Advertising also increases the value of a product, so the value of things whose value can be captured by advertisers will be inflated when compared to their value in an environment without advertising.
bccdee 2y ago
> natural market by default, meaning you must use brutal authoritarianism to disrupt it entirely Ok? If that's how we define "brutal authoritarianism," I guess I'm a brutal authoritarian. There's a natural market for mob hitmen (scarce + in-demand)—are you opposed to a "brutal authoritarian" crackdown on those too? > Disrupting natural markets with authoritarianism usually ends up worse than any downsides of the decentralized market regulation of that scarcity. Citation very much needed. Suppliers of lead paint, asbestos, ozone-destroying aerosols, contaminated foodstuffs, etc. did not regulate themselves in a decentralized manner. In fact, take virtually any toxic contaminant or hazardous product and you'll usually find that the market colluded to cover up evidence of harm, rather than "self-regulating." > generally trends toward making the highest value messages for both the audience and advertiser Absolutely not. Consumers do not exert demand for certain types of ads in preference to others. There's no mechanism for ads to converge toward high audience value. It's advertiser value that is optimized for, often to the detriment of consumers (e.g. advertisements for profitable scams, which have negative value). Even if you want to argue that advertisements inform consumers to some extent, that's probably outweighed by the extent that they misinform consumers. Consider infomercial products: Regular kitchen knives don't need an advertisement because demand is inelastic. If you're cooking, you need a knife; nobody has to promote the idea of knives. But the "slap-chop" is a product with elastic demand, and thus the marginal value of advertising is much greater for them. Hence, they can afford to buy up huge amounts of ad space to drum up demand for an essentially worthless product. The advertising ecosystem has perverse incentive to promote scams. > But to ban it outright would require an extreme policing of all speech at all levels of society. There are a lot of noxious and socially destructive things which are not practical to ban.
- pembrook 2y ago
  You've taken small snippets of my text and stood them up as lone straw-men to argue against, instead of arguing against my actual premise. No, murder is not comparable to advertising. And no, not once did I ever say the phrase "self-regulating" nor did I argue against regulation of advertising. Your fundamental belief (and the prevailing view on HN) that advertising is a scam and intended to "misinform" is incorrect. Apparently I need to say this again because it's hard to grasp the concept of nuance--Are some advertisements scams? Absolutely. The market is not perfectly efficient, but again, markets trend in the direction of efficiency over long periods. Ultimately, the vast majority of advertisements you see are for the products that are the most desired by people, hence why they can profitably continue advertising over time. Just because you aren't interested in the product, doesn't mean it's a scam . Enough people in the audience of whatever media you consume think otherwise, hence why the company is advertising there. Again, there are absolutely stupid companies wasting money on stupid ads, but they tend to get outcompeted by the smarter ones. I get it though, giving people you believe are less intelligent than you the freedom to make decisions is frustrating. Even in your example of the slap-chop, which you say is a "worthless product," funny enough, I literally just used a similar product yesterday to dice a large amount of onions quickly. Guess I'm stupid and I need an authoritarian like you to tell me a smarter way to live. Alternatively though, the idea that knife makers don't promote their products is just hilarious to me. The market for kitchen knives is extremely competitive and just because the advertising doesn't take the form of a 30 second TV spot from the 1990s doesn't mean they just throw their products on the market with zero promotion. How do you think certain brands even appear on the shelves of the stores you shop in? You're gonna hate this too...turns out shelf space is scarce so shelf space is a market as well, and it's more of an economic calculation than one of technical passion. Oh no not again!
const_cast 2y ago
> Human attention is scarce. Demand for that attention is endless. Scarcity + demand creates a natural market by default, meaning you must use brutal authoritarianism to disrupt it entirely This logic is just bad, plain and simple. You know what else has a high demand? Drugs. So I guess fuck it, right? Sell heroin in Walmart, who cares. It's a "natural market". Of course people want to shoot up, it feels fucking amazing and humans are hard-wired to do shit that makes them feel good. So let's just give up and do nothing. Yeah, in fact go ahead and advertise heroin on TVs. Yeah, go ahead and give it to infants too, let's get them young. After all, it's a natural market or something. Please, I am begging you, stop bending over so severely for "markets". Sit back, and think about consequences. If something ONLY HARMS PEOPLE, why are we doing it? Seriously, if everyone is a loser then why are we here? We don't have to make life hell just because capitalism would like it! That's a choice!
asdf6969 2y ago
> Advertising puts a price on the scarce commodity of attention Why should I be allowed to sell my attention any more than I can sell my own kidneys? It's even worse because I let other people sell my attention for me and get nothing back. What point are you trying to make? The market for manipulating my behaviour shouldn't exist at all so I really don't care how efficient it is > the highest value messages for both the audience.. Obviously not. If this was true then people would pay to see more ads and everyone knows that doesn't happen
marssaxman 2y ago
There are forms of advertising which are consensual - someone who buys a copy of Vogue presumably does so because they want to see the products being advertised - but the advertising I would ban is that which responds to the demand for attention by flat-out stealing it. If it's not consensual, it should not be legal. > you must use brutal authoritarianism to disrupt it entirely I'm not usually a fan of brutal authoritarianism, but you're making it sound pretty good.

grandempire 2y ago

One reason why the definition is more important when it comes to outlawing behavior is that when you get it wrong you are actually preventing people from doing something that is important and valuable to them. Ironically this is something lawyers and judges would pick up on immediately. You need an underlying principle of harm that can be applied consistently.

cratermoon 2y ago
> you are actually preventing people from doing something that is important and valuable to them. There are many things individuals will consider "important and valuable to them" that are harmful to others. We prevent individuals from harming others for their own self-gain because that's what societies do.
- bccdee 2y ago
  This is an argument against people having rights at all. "Oh, you think you're entitled to X? Well, in certain scenarios, X might cause harm. You might use free speech to advocate for something bad, or leverage your immunity to unjust search & seizure to conceal evidence of a crime." Consider that the author considers propaganda to be a form of advertising, and suggests we ban propaganda. Well, Fox News is is probably one of the most influential sources of propaganda in our era, and they're just publishing news with a strong political slant. This anti-propaganda law effectively would have to make it illegal to publish political opinion pieces. That would be absurdly draconian. For the record, I'm strongly anti-advertising, but a complete ban on advertisement would be impossible to construct because you can't draw a sharp line between ads and free expression.
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    > Well, Fox News is is probably one of the most influential sources of propaganda in our era, and they're just publishing news with a strong political slant. Actually (and hilariously) Fox News according to their own court filings do not publish news, they are an entertainment product. And I say ironically because that's exactly the mechanism people are clamoring for in this discussion: it's the courts. Lawyers argue and courts eventually decide definitions all the time, because it's highly impractical to belabor and endlessly debate passing new laws because we don't have ironclad definitions in them beforehand. If you want my humble opinion, in a legal/ban sense, I would define advertising as: > Communicative material that is placed strategically by publishers or media for a price/by way of other agreement to drive awareness of products or services with the intent to generate attention and sales of said products or services.

cdecl 2y ago

The difference is that often, particular things are more concretely defined. A ban on advertising might be so onerous you wouldn't even be able to 'advertise' your FOSS projects on HN. In what way could you learn about novel commercial things in the absence of advertising? Word of mouth alone?

NeutralCrane 2y ago
I don’t think it would be onerous nor ill defined. Simply make it illegal to pay someone to or receive payment for making a public announcement for a product, service, or brand. If no payment is involved, it’s fine. People are free to promote their own or others products on social media, YouTube, the side of their car or house, so long as they aren’t paid to do so. That is hardly any more convoluted or ill-defined than dozens of other laws on the books. And yes, word of mouth and non-paid advertising is absolutely capable of spreading awareness on its own.
- cdecl 2y ago
  Does giving someone the product count as a payment?
  - ajolly 2y ago
    In the US, yes that would count his taxable income so I'd also consider it a payment.