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"would’ve been a “nature is healing” moment for the web". I wish this was true. The healing will be when all ads and marketing will be down to zero. This compa

by roscas 1y ago

"would’ve been a “nature is healing” moment for the web". I wish this was true. The healing will be when all ads and marketing will be down to zero. This companies like Facebook and Google make their billions putting on your face what you don't want or need and someone else pays them good money for that. You may think it's too radical but we must make marketing illegal. Then fix the web.

kyrra 1y ago
This is a pipe dream. Advertising always has existed and always will. It comes and goes in different forms, but people like selling things they make or services they provide. Without a way of getting those things in front of people, nothing new could come to light. I agree that some sites make advertisements a massive eyesore, but that's a problem that can be solved in other ways.
- _aavaa_ 1y ago
  While that’s technically true it’s not true about the current type of advertising. The ads we see online now (and the tracking that goes with it) are what, 20 years old? The type of marketing and advertising we live with now is a direct descendent of research and work done in the last century (thanks Bernays). The whole point of Google was to get people answers to questions they have. Our current approach to advertising creates the problems in people’s heads only to immediately sell the solution.
- idle_zealot 1y ago
  > Without a way of getting those things in front of people, nothing new could come to light This argument sounds intuitive, but are we really sure about that? People willingly seek out marketing materials to find things they want to buy. I've seen people flip through coupon books and catalogs as idle entertainment. That plus word of mouth may well be sufficient to keep knowledge of new products and such in circulation. Hell, it might even yield better-informed consumers, allowing the market to function more efficiently.
  - wkat4242 1y ago
    One thing I'd worry about is ads would become unviable or banned somehow would be that companies would militarize the word of mouth element. Basically like the old tupperware parties.
  - Spivak 1y ago
    Facebook but for product discovery would be amazing. Their algorithm is scary good, let me sit in the driver's seat when I'm shopping around and I'll have no complaints. It's the "every surface your eyes will ever touch will have ads intermixed in" I have a problem with.
- scotty79 1y ago
  You could say the same about prostitution and gambling. It's still worth to treat it as it should be treated and to try to curb it.
  - roscas 1y ago
    How can you compare a prostitue to a marketing person? A prostitute is still a person.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- bdangubic 1y ago
  Without a way of getting those things in front of people, nothing new could come to light. Most of the things I own / purchase / use… I have neither seen a commercial for nor pursuaded by it if I saw it in passing. So there are other ways. Right now few of the largest companies on the planet contribute little-to-nothing to society other than showing garbage down people’s throats. Perhaps there is some happy medium but I don’t think society can ever reach it any longer
- balamatom 1y ago
  >Without a way of getting those things in front of people, nothing new could come to light. If my environment was not inundated with advertisement, I'd only be seeing more things that I'd be willing to pay for, not less. >I agree that some sites make advertisements a massive eyesore, but that's a problem that can be solved in other ways. Ads are not simply a way of getting your product in front of people. Ever wonder why ads are the fig leaf for mass surveillance? It's because they constitute some primitive, mild, poorly understood, but completely socially acceptable form of *non-consensual behavior modification*. That this has been tolerated up to now is a historical contigency. Much like other civilizational essentials like tobacco products and leaded gas, as soon as someone prices in the externalities - whether through regulation or through disruption - the societal attitudes to them will quickly change from "unavoidable" towards "inexcusable".
idle_zealot 1y ago
> You may think it's too radical but we must make marketing illegal. Then fix the web. I've given some thought to this, and outright banning marketing sounds basically impossible. Not just from a "good luck getting that bill passed" sense, but in a practical one. Where do you draw the line on "marketing"? Presumably my writing a glowing review of a product I like won't be banned, and online banner ads will. I'm not trying to make a "the line is blurry therefore no regulation can happen" argument, rather I think "marketing" isn't really the right line. Specifically, what ought to be banned is the sale of attention. Anything where money or favors are changing hands in order to direct attention intentionally to your product, service, etc. So you can absolutely have a marketing page extolling the virtues of your brand. You cannot pay to have that page shoved in front of people's eyeballs. Yes, I know that this kills the ad-based funding of the current internet. Let it burn. A mix of community-run free services and commercial paid services is infinitely preferable to the "free" trash we've grown dependent on. To make an ethical argument: quantifying and selling human attention is gross anyway. Some things just don't belong on a market.
- porridgeraisin 1y ago
  > practical one I had a decent idea. Not that it's easily practical, but it's more practical than other solutions. Major problem today is information asymmetry. Google giving you free YouTube videos is front and center. Google paying for it by linking your location and this and that fingerprint from here and there is hidden in whitewashed language 3 settings menus deep. Many things are hidden in bottom right of a billboard in fine print, t&c fine prints, etc,. What I propose is the law making sure that all information about the product that you intend to or are forced to by regulation to make public, public in the same measure. That is, if you're going to advertise "coca cola, open happiness" you also need to have in the same fontsize "39g of sugar" right next to it. Similarly google search bar needs to say what info of yours helped serve the ads you see, right next to the content paid for by those ads. If you're going to hide less palatable stuff in your t&c, then marketing logos slogans all become illegal for you. And all information even positive ones must also be in fontsize8 t&c fine print. Real estate ads can't put *artists impression at the bottom right of their ad in fine print, it has to be as big as the main tagline. You get the idea. What I gave are just examples, slight variations of the idea that still focus on information symmetry as the main goal, will also work.
eldenring 1y ago
So what do you do if you have a better product and a "name brand" disadvantage? Advertising commodifies information flow instead of letting it pool with the people who already have access to it. Think of all the products that got big nowadays because they could convince VCs to fund ad spend, and saw a return for it. I think advertising has a huge, positive, 2nd order effect on the world.
- scotty79 1y ago
  Entire advertising industry could be replaced by one database of products and services at a fraction of the cost to the consumer.
  - chermi 1y ago
    Please expound. Are we going to fill in yearly surveys explaining what we like and don't like? Where does the information come from? Who determines the algorithm for placement? Will there now be no way to opt-out of ads at all, there's now a national quota on how many ads were exposed to a year or something?
    - scotty79 1y ago
      There's no algorithm. Just a query language. Nothing is pushed to consumer. You want to buy something. You search. Companies can't pay anyone for any kind of publishing. Anyone is free to build tools and content that helps with the search. However companies can publish information about their products and services only through the database.
      - blackqueeriroh 1y ago
        lol you don’t understand people
        scotty79 1y ago
        I think you have trouble understanding. People happily use similar things already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_shopping_website https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_shopping_website
chankstein38 1y ago
Yeah the reality is they'll probably just find a way to sell MORE data to make the money for these fines.
tirant 1y ago
Marketing is extremely necessary in order to have competitive markets. We can discuss about what are the best means or even limits in the contents of advertising but making it illegal is non sense.
- scotty79 1y ago
  National monopoly on advertising could be sufficient replacement.
- account42 1y ago
  Because it's been working out so well for competition....

by roscas 1y ago

kyrra 1y ago

This is a pipe dream. Advertising always has existed and always will. It comes and goes in different forms, but people like selling things they make or services they provide. Without a way of getting those things in front of people, nothing new could come to light. I agree that some sites make advertisements a massive eyesore, but that's a problem that can be solved in other ways.

_aavaa_ 1y ago
While that’s technically true it’s not true about the current type of advertising. The ads we see online now (and the tracking that goes with it) are what, 20 years old? The type of marketing and advertising we live with now is a direct descendent of research and work done in the last century (thanks Bernays). The whole point of Google was to get people answers to questions they have. Our current approach to advertising creates the problems in people’s heads only to immediately sell the solution.
idle_zealot 1y ago
> Without a way of getting those things in front of people, nothing new could come to light This argument sounds intuitive, but are we really sure about that? People willingly seek out marketing materials to find things they want to buy. I've seen people flip through coupon books and catalogs as idle entertainment. That plus word of mouth may well be sufficient to keep knowledge of new products and such in circulation. Hell, it might even yield better-informed consumers, allowing the market to function more efficiently.
- wkat4242 1y ago
  One thing I'd worry about is ads would become unviable or banned somehow would be that companies would militarize the word of mouth element. Basically like the old tupperware parties.
- Spivak 1y ago
  Facebook but for product discovery would be amazing. Their algorithm is scary good, let me sit in the driver's seat when I'm shopping around and I'll have no complaints. It's the "every surface your eyes will ever touch will have ads intermixed in" I have a problem with.
scotty79 1y ago
You could say the same about prostitution and gambling. It's still worth to treat it as it should be treated and to try to curb it.
- roscas 1y ago
  How can you compare a prostitue to a marketing person? A prostitute is still a person.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
bdangubic 1y ago
Without a way of getting those things in front of people, nothing new could come to light. Most of the things I own / purchase / use… I have neither seen a commercial for nor pursuaded by it if I saw it in passing. So there are other ways. Right now few of the largest companies on the planet contribute little-to-nothing to society other than showing garbage down people’s throats. Perhaps there is some happy medium but I don’t think society can ever reach it any longer
balamatom 1y ago
>Without a way of getting those things in front of people, nothing new could come to light. If my environment was not inundated with advertisement, I'd only be seeing more things that I'd be willing to pay for, not less. >I agree that some sites make advertisements a massive eyesore, but that's a problem that can be solved in other ways. Ads are not simply a way of getting your product in front of people. Ever wonder why ads are the fig leaf for mass surveillance? It's because they constitute some primitive, mild, poorly understood, but completely socially acceptable form of *non-consensual behavior modification*. That this has been tolerated up to now is a historical contigency. Much like other civilizational essentials like tobacco products and leaded gas, as soon as someone prices in the externalities - whether through regulation or through disruption - the societal attitudes to them will quickly change from "unavoidable" towards "inexcusable".

idle_zealot 1y ago

> You may think it's too radical but we must make marketing illegal. Then fix the web. I've given some thought to this, and outright banning marketing sounds basically impossible. Not just from a "good luck getting that bill passed" sense, but in a practical one. Where do you draw the line on "marketing"? Presumably my writing a glowing review of a product I like won't be banned, and online banner ads will. I'm not trying to make a "the line is blurry therefore no regulation can happen" argument, rather I think "marketing" isn't really the right line. Specifically, what ought to be banned is the sale of attention. Anything where money or favors are changing hands in order to direct attention intentionally to your product, service, etc. So you can absolutely have a marketing page extolling the virtues of your brand. You cannot pay to have that page shoved in front of people's eyeballs. Yes, I know that this kills the ad-based funding of the current internet. Let it burn. A mix of community-run free services and commercial paid services is infinitely preferable to the "free" trash we've grown dependent on. To make an ethical argument: quantifying and selling human attention is gross anyway. Some things just don't belong on a market.

porridgeraisin 1y ago
> practical one I had a decent idea. Not that it's easily practical, but it's more practical than other solutions. Major problem today is information asymmetry. Google giving you free YouTube videos is front and center. Google paying for it by linking your location and this and that fingerprint from here and there is hidden in whitewashed language 3 settings menus deep. Many things are hidden in bottom right of a billboard in fine print, t&c fine prints, etc,. What I propose is the law making sure that all information about the product that you intend to or are forced to by regulation to make public, public in the same measure. That is, if you're going to advertise "coca cola, open happiness" you also need to have in the same fontsize "39g of sugar" right next to it. Similarly google search bar needs to say what info of yours helped serve the ads you see, right next to the content paid for by those ads. If you're going to hide less palatable stuff in your t&c, then marketing logos slogans all become illegal for you. And all information even positive ones must also be in fontsize8 t&c fine print. Real estate ads can't put *artists impression at the bottom right of their ad in fine print, it has to be as big as the main tagline. You get the idea. What I gave are just examples, slight variations of the idea that still focus on information symmetry as the main goal, will also work.

eldenring 1y ago

So what do you do if you have a better product and a "name brand" disadvantage? Advertising commodifies information flow instead of letting it pool with the people who already have access to it. Think of all the products that got big nowadays because they could convince VCs to fund ad spend, and saw a return for it. I think advertising has a huge, positive, 2nd order effect on the world.

scotty79 1y ago
Entire advertising industry could be replaced by one database of products and services at a fraction of the cost to the consumer.
- chermi 1y ago
  Please expound. Are we going to fill in yearly surveys explaining what we like and don't like? Where does the information come from? Who determines the algorithm for placement? Will there now be no way to opt-out of ads at all, there's now a national quota on how many ads were exposed to a year or something?
  - scotty79 1y ago
    There's no algorithm. Just a query language. Nothing is pushed to consumer. You want to buy something. You search. Companies can't pay anyone for any kind of publishing. Anyone is free to build tools and content that helps with the search. However companies can publish information about their products and services only through the database.
    - blackqueeriroh 1y ago
      lol you don’t understand people
      - scotty79 1y ago
        I think you have trouble understanding. People happily use similar things already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_shopping_website https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_shopping_website

chankstein38 1y ago

Yeah the reality is they'll probably just find a way to sell MORE data to make the money for these fines.

tirant 1y ago

Marketing is extremely necessary in order to have competitive markets. We can discuss about what are the best means or even limits in the contents of advertising but making it illegal is non sense.

scotty79 1y ago
National monopoly on advertising could be sufficient replacement.
account42 1y ago
Because it's been working out so well for competition....