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> it's indisputable that it's good for businesses and the broad economy. I dispute this. Therefore it is not indisputable. I support my dispute thusly: imagin
by marcus_holmes 1y ago
> it's indisputable that it's good for businesses and the broad economy.
I dispute this. Therefore it is not indisputable.
I support my dispute thusly: imagine a world where there were no ads. All the money spent on ads would be spent on other things. Those other things would, I assert, be better for everyone involved than ads. The world would be a better place.
I support my assertion that anything else would be better than ads by pointing out that for businesses advertising is an arms race, all your competition and you are in an auction for customer attention in which the winner is one of the duopoly that control all internet advertising. And for users I just point to waves hands at everything we hate about the modern internet all that. QED.
- hgomersall 1y agoI don't disagree with you broad statement that ads are a shitty thing on the whole, but their cost should be viewed in real terms not financial terms. That is, the cost is the people that work on the tech, the resources spent delivering them, the attention diverted to looking at them etc etc. The ad companies are sitting on huge cash piles so clearly there's a shortfall in the value of resources that can be bought if we stopped spending on ads.
- marcus_holmes 1y agoThis is the Parable of the broken window [0] in action. The piles of cash that the ad duopoly are sitting on could (and would) be spent elsewhere, and that would benefit us more (by my assertion above) It's not "look at all the money they made, this service must be valuable", it's "is the money they made the best possible use of those resources?" and my answer is "definitely not" [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window