6 ms·

I don't really care if companies -- of any size -- can reach me or not. If I want a service they provide, I will actively seek them out. Large companies alrea

by kelnos 2y ago

I don't really care if companies -- of any size -- can reach me or not. If I want a service they provide, I will actively seek them out. Large companies already have a huge advantage over small/new companies in that they have much more money to spend on marketing and advertising. If anything, banning paid advertising helps level the playing field. People will still find out about small and new businesses if paid advertising was banned. In fact I learn about most smaller players through word of mouth and other non-paid sources.

Kerrick 2y ago
When you seek them out, how will you find them?
- jrvarela56 2y ago
  Not through ads - you can be sure of that!
- TheDong 2y ago
  In the old days, if I wanted someone to remove a tree stump in my yard, I would ask my neighbor who had a stump removed who did it for them, or open the yellow pages. In the modern age, I would open google maps (where companies can, for free, volunteer to be listed), or google.com and search. The yellow pages are ads, and in a sense a company having a webpage which is indexed by google is advertising, but advertising in an index of services is wildly different from paying an influencer on tiktok to do a dance video that just happens to have a tree stump being removed in the background, as if by accident, with the company name visible. I think anti-advertising people are largely fine with a yellow-pages-like list of companies, with a search engine that indexes company websites, with word-of-mouth questions and reports about what services exist out there. Will it be harder for a new company that spends $10 on a purse made in vietnam and $20MM on advertising to convince consumers it's a necessary fashion item worth $20k to take off? Yes, absolutely. Will it be harder for a plumber in my area to get business? Honestly, probably about the same, people who need a plumber will usually look at the list of businesses offering the service in their area, and a new plumber can easily get added to google maps and slap together a site.
  - sanswork 2y ago
    Who is paying for Google to run the search system or maps in this world?
    - epidemian 2y ago
      Those are indeed very useful things. It's true that people often spend their money on frivolous or unnecessary things. But sometimes people pay for useful things too!
    - TheDong 2y ago
      I pay for kagi, and that works okay. I would prefer if this search-engine / company-directory were government funded, and thus paid for via my taxes. It's a useful service for the people, and having the government also be able to validate businesses are real legal entities seems quite useful, so making it tax funded seems pretty ideal. Ditto for an up-to-date map, that's a generally useful thing to the populace, and the government really is the best authority on what streets are still usable, what towns exist, etc.
      - sanswork 2y ago
        Most people can't afford to pay for Kagi. A government funded maps program would be great same with a government funded search engine that had to try and compete with international search engines with more resources. You can choose not to use Google though and avoid their ads. You can choose not to use any service that uses ads and only use ones that allow you to pay for ad free experiences. Banning ads removes that possibility for others when you can solve the problem today for yourself.
        TheDong 2y ago
        > You can choose not to use any service that uses ads and only use ones that allow you to pay for ad free experiences. Ads are so incredibly pervasive I effectively cannot. There's stores I go to which only post their hours on instagram. There's friends I communicate with where my only communication avenue is instagram. When I walk outside of my door I see billboards and ads, when I install an app required for my daily life, it's full of ads. iPhone, android, and windows all have ads by default littered throughout default apps. We live in a society, and becoming a weirdo who refuses to use anything that doesn't run on my linux-phone will isolate me from that society. It's perfectly possible to criticize a thing and imagine alternatives without first becoming richard stallman.
- kaibee 2y ago
  Imagine this: instead of the search engine space being 90% focused on ads and 10% on providing a good search experience, you could have one that is focused on finding the thing you're looking for.
  - sanswork 2y ago
    You can have that now if you subscribe to Kagi but it costs money to operate and use. So without advertising you're choosing to make it impossible for poorer people to search.
    - roenxi 2y ago
      I don't see that argument having much heft. The people who are worried about their view being soured by billboards aren't the ones who are worried about what happens to poorer people. They move in different circles.
- epidemian 2y ago
  I really can't believe that someone who frequents Hacker News can ask this question. If by any chance this is a legit question, i feel the answer would be too obvious: asking people, googling, going to a store you think could sell the thing you want, etc. There are many many pretty obvious ways of finding out about stuff, without needing to have a corporation "reach out" to me and shove their shit everywhere in the form of ads.
  - sanswork 2y ago
    Google doesn't exist in this world remember
    - epidemian 2y ago
      Yes, i remember. I remember Google the search engine being a thing before it became an ad-ridden space. Search engines are useful things. They can still exist on a world without ads.
      - sanswork 2y ago
        Google existed before ads by losing investor money. Who is paying for it when ads are banned?
        epidemian 2y ago
        This a thread about imagining a world without ads. If we're trying to envision that, it surely is not too hard to imagine how such a useful service for society as a search engine could be funded by other means, right? There are many many examples of useful services (both private and public) in our own world that manage to exist without the need to get plastered by obnoxious ads.
        sanswork 2y ago
        People get upset at the idea of using government money to feed the starving. Why do you assume they would be ok with spending billions to create a search engine? The reality is you can choose to have your dream reality right now. Pay for Kagi, pay for ad free streaming or buy bluerays, stay of social media or subscribe direct to your content providers in patron. We don't need to remove free access just so a few people can go ad free. Those people can already do it they just choose not to
kortilla 2y ago
>If I want a service they provide, I will actively seek them out. The problem is there are some services you don’t even know exist that could be much better than how you’re currently solving a problem. Think prevention vs treatment of a problem. For a concrete example: I learned about a dog groomer that comes to your house this way. Maybe it should have been obvious there would be some that made house calls but searching Google maps for groomers tends to return the ones with locations that you drive to. Dog hates the car. Problem solved with a thing I didn’t know existed.
- NoWordsKotoba 2y ago
  Advertising is the cure worse than the disease in this case. I'm willing to have a slightly worse service occasionally if it means I'm not being bombarded with corporate propaganda. If a service is bad enough, or my desire for something is great enough, I will seek it out.
- forgetfreeman 2y ago
  If you're relying on ads to tell you how to solve your problems you're implicitly trusting that the information provided in ads is factual and unbiased, and that the problem in question wasn't entirely manufactured by the industry that is now showing you ads (see also: manscaping, engagement rings, vehicle AI integration, etc)
- asdf6969 2y ago
  I don't mean to be rude but I genuinely can't think of any service I've learned about through advertising. Do you have an example? I actively seek out product reviews and trailers for things I already know I want but I don't think an ad has changed my mind, just changed whether I buy A or B
  - x0xrx 2y ago
    How would you know? If you heard about it through word of mouth, and the person you heard it from heard it from an ad…
    - 2y ago
throwaway657656 2y ago
[flagged]
- WorldPeas 2y ago
  if only there were some way to move beyond ads, to something where items that would genuinely benefit or brighten one's life are surfaced
- TFYS 2y ago
  For every situation like yours there's probably 10 where a product that doesn't work is advertised and people waste their money and continue suffering. This is not a problem that should be fixed by intrusive data gathering and advertising, but with a working healthcare system.
- reportgunner 2y ago
  Something is really wrong with you if you think of a targeted ad instead of a doctor when you have a medical problem.
  - throwaway657656 2y ago
    I did talk to a doctor. He quoted me $12,000 for a surgery that sounded excessive and had a long recovery time. I try to get second opinions, but doctors are so busy that I never get a call back or schedule many months out. Oddly the wealthier I get the more I distrust doctors. Why perform a $300 tooth filling, example, when you can creatively justify a $5000 root canal and crown. They know I have the money and their kids private school ain't cheap.
- const_cast 2y ago
  [dead]

by kelnos 2y ago

Kerrick 2y ago

When you seek them out, how will you find them?

jrvarela56 2y ago
Not through ads - you can be sure of that!
TheDong 2y ago
In the old days, if I wanted someone to remove a tree stump in my yard, I would ask my neighbor who had a stump removed who did it for them, or open the yellow pages. In the modern age, I would open google maps (where companies can, for free, volunteer to be listed), or google.com and search. The yellow pages are ads, and in a sense a company having a webpage which is indexed by google is advertising, but advertising in an index of services is wildly different from paying an influencer on tiktok to do a dance video that just happens to have a tree stump being removed in the background, as if by accident, with the company name visible. I think anti-advertising people are largely fine with a yellow-pages-like list of companies, with a search engine that indexes company websites, with word-of-mouth questions and reports about what services exist out there. Will it be harder for a new company that spends $10 on a purse made in vietnam and $20MM on advertising to convince consumers it's a necessary fashion item worth $20k to take off? Yes, absolutely. Will it be harder for a plumber in my area to get business? Honestly, probably about the same, people who need a plumber will usually look at the list of businesses offering the service in their area, and a new plumber can easily get added to google maps and slap together a site.
- sanswork 2y ago
  Who is paying for Google to run the search system or maps in this world?
  - epidemian 2y ago
    Those are indeed very useful things. It's true that people often spend their money on frivolous or unnecessary things. But sometimes people pay for useful things too!
  - TheDong 2y ago
    I pay for kagi, and that works okay. I would prefer if this search-engine / company-directory were government funded, and thus paid for via my taxes. It's a useful service for the people, and having the government also be able to validate businesses are real legal entities seems quite useful, so making it tax funded seems pretty ideal. Ditto for an up-to-date map, that's a generally useful thing to the populace, and the government really is the best authority on what streets are still usable, what towns exist, etc.
    - sanswork 2y ago
      Most people can't afford to pay for Kagi. A government funded maps program would be great same with a government funded search engine that had to try and compete with international search engines with more resources. You can choose not to use Google though and avoid their ads. You can choose not to use any service that uses ads and only use ones that allow you to pay for ad free experiences. Banning ads removes that possibility for others when you can solve the problem today for yourself.
      - TheDong 2y ago
        > You can choose not to use any service that uses ads and only use ones that allow you to pay for ad free experiences. Ads are so incredibly pervasive I effectively cannot. There's stores I go to which only post their hours on instagram. There's friends I communicate with where my only communication avenue is instagram. When I walk outside of my door I see billboards and ads, when I install an app required for my daily life, it's full of ads. iPhone, android, and windows all have ads by default littered throughout default apps. We live in a society, and becoming a weirdo who refuses to use anything that doesn't run on my linux-phone will isolate me from that society. It's perfectly possible to criticize a thing and imagine alternatives without first becoming richard stallman.
kaibee 2y ago
Imagine this: instead of the search engine space being 90% focused on ads and 10% on providing a good search experience, you could have one that is focused on finding the thing you're looking for.
- sanswork 2y ago
  You can have that now if you subscribe to Kagi but it costs money to operate and use. So without advertising you're choosing to make it impossible for poorer people to search.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    I don't see that argument having much heft. The people who are worried about their view being soured by billboards aren't the ones who are worried about what happens to poorer people. They move in different circles.
epidemian 2y ago
I really can't believe that someone who frequents Hacker News can ask this question. If by any chance this is a legit question, i feel the answer would be too obvious: asking people, googling, going to a store you think could sell the thing you want, etc. There are many many pretty obvious ways of finding out about stuff, without needing to have a corporation "reach out" to me and shove their shit everywhere in the form of ads.
- sanswork 2y ago
  Google doesn't exist in this world remember
  - epidemian 2y ago
    Yes, i remember. I remember Google the search engine being a thing before it became an ad-ridden space. Search engines are useful things. They can still exist on a world without ads.
    - sanswork 2y ago
      Google existed before ads by losing investor money. Who is paying for it when ads are banned?
      - epidemian 2y ago
        This a thread about imagining a world without ads. If we're trying to envision that, it surely is not too hard to imagine how such a useful service for society as a search engine could be funded by other means, right? There are many many examples of useful services (both private and public) in our own world that manage to exist without the need to get plastered by obnoxious ads.
        sanswork 2y ago
        People get upset at the idea of using government money to feed the starving. Why do you assume they would be ok with spending billions to create a search engine? The reality is you can choose to have your dream reality right now. Pay for Kagi, pay for ad free streaming or buy bluerays, stay of social media or subscribe direct to your content providers in patron. We don't need to remove free access just so a few people can go ad free. Those people can already do it they just choose not to

kortilla 2y ago

>If I want a service they provide, I will actively seek them out. The problem is there are some services you don’t even know exist that could be much better than how you’re currently solving a problem. Think prevention vs treatment of a problem. For a concrete example: I learned about a dog groomer that comes to your house this way. Maybe it should have been obvious there would be some that made house calls but searching Google maps for groomers tends to return the ones with locations that you drive to. Dog hates the car. Problem solved with a thing I didn’t know existed.

NoWordsKotoba 2y ago
Advertising is the cure worse than the disease in this case. I'm willing to have a slightly worse service occasionally if it means I'm not being bombarded with corporate propaganda. If a service is bad enough, or my desire for something is great enough, I will seek it out.
forgetfreeman 2y ago
If you're relying on ads to tell you how to solve your problems you're implicitly trusting that the information provided in ads is factual and unbiased, and that the problem in question wasn't entirely manufactured by the industry that is now showing you ads (see also: manscaping, engagement rings, vehicle AI integration, etc)
asdf6969 2y ago
I don't mean to be rude but I genuinely can't think of any service I've learned about through advertising. Do you have an example? I actively seek out product reviews and trailers for things I already know I want but I don't think an ad has changed my mind, just changed whether I buy A or B
- x0xrx 2y ago
  How would you know? If you heard about it through word of mouth, and the person you heard it from heard it from an ad…
  - 2y ago

throwaway657656 2y ago

[flagged]

WorldPeas 2y ago
if only there were some way to move beyond ads, to something where items that would genuinely benefit or brighten one's life are surfaced
TFYS 2y ago
For every situation like yours there's probably 10 where a product that doesn't work is advertised and people waste their money and continue suffering. This is not a problem that should be fixed by intrusive data gathering and advertising, but with a working healthcare system.
reportgunner 2y ago
Something is really wrong with you if you think of a targeted ad instead of a doctor when you have a medical problem.
- throwaway657656 2y ago
  I did talk to a doctor. He quoted me $12,000 for a surgery that sounded excessive and had a long recovery time. I try to get second opinions, but doctors are so busy that I never get a call back or schedule many months out. Oddly the wealthier I get the more I distrust doctors. Why perform a $300 tooth filling, example, when you can creatively justify a $5000 root canal and crown. They know I have the money and their kids private school ain't cheap.
const_cast 2y ago
[dead]