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Time to ban all adverts everywhere. I'm not the only one who is fed up with ads. I don't see ads, thanks to ad blocking tech in browsers and smartphones. Any t

• mikkupikku 10mo ago
  Legal ads in product catalogues only. Product catalogues are actually useful and nobody is subjected to them unless they chose to seek one out and pick it up willingly.
  • duskdozer 10mo ago
    I'm glad to hear someone else come to this as the solution for ads.
  • nish__ 10mo ago
    Wait, what? I'm confused. Is the entire product catalogue considered an ad? Or do you mean parts of a product catalogue can contain adverts? I'd argue a product catalogue is not advertising at all.
    • mikkupikku 10mo ago
      I consider each product listing in a catalogues to be ads, or perhaps the whole catalogues is one big aggregate ad. Either way, I'm fine with them. Product catalogues are mostly innocuous and usually provide more empirical product information than other forms of advertisement.
      • nish__ 10mo ago
        Cool, I'm fine with them too. As long as they're not mailed out without consent.
    • Blackthorn 10mo ago
      Anderton's (a music retailer in the UK) has an enormously popular YouTube channel (1M subs) which is basically just them demoing their stock while shooting the breeze. It's 100% an advertisement, but it's the sort that most people (including myself, who otherwise hates ads) is fine with because you have to seek it out.
      • NickC25 10mo ago
        This is the type of advertising I actually like. I'm a huge buff for music gear/tech. I love seeing the newest plugins, pedals, software. I actively seek it out. I know demos of products are effectively advertisements, but they are the right type of ads and aimed at a crowd that seeks info the right way and likely is a higher probability of making a purchase.
    • immibis 10mo ago
      Of course it's advertising. It's telling you about products you can buy, pushed by people who want you to buy those products, and they can pay money to be on an earlier page (we should probably ban that). But the general idea of a product catalogue shouldn't be illegal even if ads are illegal, because it's actually useful and non-invasive.
• bamboozled 10mo ago
  The current admin will get right on that …
  • idle_zealot 10mo ago
    To be clear, Dems are about as unlikely to do this as the Trump administration is. This is the sort of generational reform that requires a redefining of a political party.
  • spaqin 10mo ago
    It's a worldwide issue. Even the OP link was to an UK-based subreddit.
• andrewrn 10mo ago
  There are billions of dollars motivated against this outcome
  • nish__ 10mo ago
    There are billions of lives motivated for it.
    • krapp 10mo ago
      No there aren't. There are not billions of people motivated for the total elimination of all advertisements everywhere. The vast majority of humans do not care one way or another, and most of those who dislike advertising probably wouldn't support banning them entirely.
      • nish__ 10mo ago
        Yes. There most certainly are. The vast majority of humans are not benefiting from it and are therefore motivated against it. Also, they do care. They just might not be consciously aware of the damage it causes.
        • krapp 10mo ago
          >The vast majority of humans are not benefiting from it and are therefore motivated against it. The vast majority of humans don't benefit from most things, but they are not therefore motivated against most things. That's not how motivation works. >Also, they do care they just might not be consciously aware of the damage it causes. So the one thing the entire human race agrees on is that advertising is evil, just unconsciously? They don't realize it but somehow you do? No, sorry. I have assume you're trolling. Good show, you managed to annoy me.
          • nish__ 10mo ago
            You must own shares in Google. The vast majority of humans are motivated against inequality. Advertising creates a larger wealth gap. The fact that you're annoyed by me says a lot more about the type of person you are than anything else. And no I'm not "trolling". Grow up and reconsider your insane position.
• hiddencost 10mo ago
  I thought you were being sarcastic at the start. Vermont bans billboards on high ways. It's so nice.
  • deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  • babymetal 10mo ago
    My parents were architects and my sister and I lived our first few years in Honolulu before moving to the SF Bay Area. There were no billboards in Hawaii, and I recall distinctly the first drive from SFO the the East Bay. I was unable to avoid reading and staring at every billboard next to the freeway and it literally made me throw up. I didn't understand what was happening. Of course, I was quickly conditioned off of that response to billboards, which I consider natural.
• baubino 10mo ago
  A simpler solution is to allow the device owner to turn off ads. Ads on purchased devices should be opt-in, not default and not mandatory.
  • ForceBru 10mo ago
    Unfortunately, the whole point is that along with the fridge/whatever tech you purchase a billboard and willingly bring ads into your home. Of course ads on purchased devices should be mandatory AND we customers will soon be expected to pay a "subscription fee" to temporarily unsubscribe from the ads. What kind of company would possibly make ads opt-in? IMO allowing the owner to turn off ads is a problem (for the company), not a solution
    • immibis 10mo ago
      That's fine. They can simply charge for the product what it costs to make, like they always did before, and if they find that nobody uses the "enable ads" button (because why would they?) they can save some maintenance effort by removing that button. They might even find the fridge doesn't need a wifi chip and can be cheaper.
      • account42 10mo ago
        Most products are not priced to cost.
    • lkbm 10mo ago
      > What kind of company would possibly make ads opt-in? Amazon has for years: Kindle with ads on the lock screen is $20 cheaper than without: https://www.amazon.com/All-new-Amazon-Kindle-Paperwhite-glare-free/dp/B0CFPJYX7P/ref=sr_1_1 https://www.amazon.com/All-new-Amazon-Kindle-Paperwhite-glar...
  • jeroenhd 10mo ago
    It's not as easy with some digital devices (even TVs these days), but fridges are a category where I can decisively say people who don't want ads can just buy a version without ads. If a fridge maker wants to sell you a cheaper fridge subsidized by ads, I don't think that's a problem as long as tracking is optional.
• Insanity 10mo ago
  One that is really insane to me is Ads when driving on the highway. I can’t recall seeing that in Europe, but now in Canada when I take the highway there’s Ads everywhere. Some of them rotate. Ironically they also have a sign that changes, one of the updates is “don’t drive distracted”… and like, I wasn’t distracted until the sign flashed at me lol.
  • nish__ 10mo ago
    Honestly. Premier Ford you listening?
    • Zambyte 10mo ago
      As someone who is not Canadian, pretty much the only thing I know about Doug Ford is how actively against road safety Doug Ford is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Ford#Bike_infrastructure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Ford#Bike_infrastructure
  • unyttigfjelltol 10mo ago
    What you are observing is the trick the industry used to get approval for changing LED billboards— they “donate” say fifteen hours per month to public service announcements. This kind of concession is gold to an ambitious public servant, the old prohibitions never stood a chance. The PSA could be “stop electronic billboards” but that was the way they got through high-friction public processes. Good org on the other side of the issue: Scenic America: https://www.scenic.org/why-scenic-conservation/billboards-and-sign-control/ https://www.scenic.org/why-scenic-conservation/billboards-an...
    • Terr_ 10mo ago
      My state has a neat legal trick that applies to most major highways: You can set up a big tall sign to advertise but it has to be for a product or service drivers can stop and buy on the premises. This removes much of the incentive for spamming enormous signs and renting them out to the highest bidder. That may change if it becomes really cheap to put a functional vending machine below.
• wslh 10mo ago
  I agree, ads are inserted everywhere, also hidden, and has surpassed the physiological threshold and brain barriers for a more healthy life (e.g. attention and feelings).
• adamwong246 10mo ago
  I love the idea, but our whole world is built on advertising. A world without ads does not seem possible. The internet mostly works only because of advertisements.
  • quesera 10mo ago
    The Internet worked before advertising. It was different, but it was great. I would absolutely go back.
    • ajs1998 10mo ago
      I would not go back. YouTube is a wonderful thing that I can't afford to pay for, and I don't want to live without. There are so many creators I love that would not be able to create and share beautiful things if they didn't get ad money. It's not all bad.
      • adamwong246 10mo ago
        yeah but what if (just hear me out) we just SELL our content. Money exchanged for goods rendered. Why subsidize this exchange with ads?
        • ragequittah 10mo ago
          That's what YouTube premium is. The fact that someone with no money gets access to all of YouTube seems like a win to me. If the only way to access was premium the world would be a worse place wouldn't it?
      • quesera 10mo ago
        I agree that it's not all bad. But if I had to choose one or the other, I'd choose no ads. And that's only comparing "then" to "now". I'm confident that "now" will get worse in the future, making "then" all the more appealing! I'm all for the idea of small content creators being able to afford to create their work. I wish content creation did not attract so many people who only do it for money, though. Maybe this would be achievable if the rewards were lower. Advertising sucks all the air out of the room for alternative funding mechanisms. If ads were eliminated, there would be other mechanisms. However, back in reality, I'll concede that (e.g.) Google's massive ad revenue has given them the ability to try a thousand other things, a handful of which will be long-term valuable to the world. But the cost is immense.
• charlesabarnes 10mo ago
  I need people to give this sort of idea more serious thought. I honestly don't think it's an insane proposition and we've let ad companies go too far. Anything they stick their hands in gets worse, full stop.
• RataNova 10mo ago
  The problem isn't just "ads exist", it’s that ads have become a business model that rewards being as intrusive and manipulative as possible
  • conception 10mo ago
    This has always been the case though. They just got better tools over time.
• ModernMech 10mo ago
  I agree with you on the total ad ban, but this has more about schizophrenia than ads. I've had to care for someone with schizoaffective disorder and she would tell me the smoke detectors were spying on us because of the red light in it, so we had to cover it with electrical tape or she would become too distressed. She told me the cats were spies with CIA microchips in them. The fridge ad is incidental -- if weren't the fridge it would have been something else.
• goncharom 10mo ago
  Relevant read (not my own): https://simone.org/advertising/ https://simone.org/advertising/
  • fsflover 10mo ago
    Related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43595269 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43595269
• sumnole 10mo ago
  Ads really aren't that bad. Targeted ads may even help you discover products you'll enjoy. The ad in the article is pretty obviously an ad to anyone that can read the words, "New Series. Start Watching". Ads like these that randomly display during idle is hardly what I consider invasive. Hopefully OP's sister gets her mental health under control, but I wouldn't immediately raise pitch forks to ban an entire industry vital to the economy and business-consumer communication.
  • estimator7292 10mo ago
    We have AI deepfake celebrities selling boner pills on YouTube. Ads absolutely are that bad
  • darknavi 10mo ago
    > hardly what I consider invasive This is an ad in someone's kitchen in their home. How can it get more invasive?
    • sumnole 10mo ago
      And a banner ad may display on a laptop in your home, what's your point? Location or device type matters not. This ad doesn't interrupt the user or demand any attention.
      • darknavi 10mo ago
        I am now appreciating the spectrum of ad acceptance. I am closer to the "billboards shouldn't be allowed" end of the spectrum. An ad sitting on a screen in my personal space sounds like a dystopian novel.
      • Telaneo 10mo ago
        > And a banner ad may display on a laptop in your home I call this invasive too. That is why I use uBlock. > This ad doesn't interrupt the user or demand any attention. Tell that to anyone with ADHD.
  • beached_whale 10mo ago
• a2dam 10mo ago
  Ads are speech. Replace all mention of "ads" in your post with "speech I don't like" and see how it reads.
  • deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  • PartiallyTyped 10mo ago
    Ads are speech until they are intrusive, until they track you across websites, until they violate your privacy. It's one thing to have a block of HTML dedicated to ads, and another to have YOUR shit running on my machine WITHOUT my consent.
    • tt24 10mo ago
      It is with your consent. You continue to visit these websites. If you don’t want their code running on your machine, simply don’t send a GET request.
      • maest 10mo ago
        I assume you forgot the /s. Otherwise this is a very weak argument. Using the Internet is approximately mandatory in our current society. "Don't use the Internet" is not useful advice.
        • tt24 10mo ago
          Sounds like the risk of seeing an advertisement is probably worth the benefit of using the internet then.
          • maest 10mo ago
            It's not an "either/or", as you seem to keep implying.
            • 10mo ago
• idle_zealot 10mo ago
  The fundamental problem here is a little broader than ads, but "ads" mostly cover it. The problem is the commoditization of human attention. The incentive to catch and sell attention is poisonous to all human endeavors. Some things need to grab your attention to fulfill their purpose, I'm not against the idea of something directing a person's attention. Where it becomes a problem is the murky line of that direction of attention being something that is bottled and sold, or otherwise used in the interest of the distracter rather than the distracted. So ads that someone seeks out of their own volition? Fine. That's just marketing material, and falls in the same category as every product announcement, press release, etc. What if a product catalog is mixed in with coupons or other rewards? Not fine anymore, you've mixed up reward-seeking and information-seeking. If someone means to direct their attention and gets distracted by an important notice, like "I mean to drive down this road, and the stop sign grabbed my attention," that's also fine. The information is relevant to the human and important for augmenting their intention. But if you download an app and try to do something, only to be met with a banner/popup/whatever informing you of other products on offer by the company? Well, they're not selling your attention to third parties, but they are monetizing it by taking your intention to use one product and attempting to redirect it into a potential purchase of another, so that's out. If you want, you can include a clearly-labelled "our other offerings" section in the app, out of the way, somewhere it would only be encountered by someone seeking it out. Distracting people cannot be allowed to be one of the main drivers of our economy.
  • bigyabai 10mo ago
    > Distracting people cannot be allowed to be one of the main drivers of our economy. Sure it can. Apple, Google and Microsoft get millions of impressions every day and everyone accepts it. Just because it's uncomfortable for you to think about doesn't mean that it's not happening, at-scale, this very minute.
    • BobaFloutist 10mo ago
      "Cannot be allowed" means "We need to stop this" in context, not that they don't believe it's happening.
• billy99k 10mo ago
  This could happen with anything when someone has a mental illness. Should anything triggering also get banned?
  • account42 10mo ago
    I agree that we should also ban other forced and unannounced updates to appliances and other consumer devices, especially ones that change the UI flows, yes.
• pcthrowaway 10mo ago
  There needs to be serious reform or just abolition altogether of advertising on things like Smart TVs We bought a TV for my grandfather in his nursing home as he was dying from Alzheimers. All TVs available now are Smart TVs, which are already difficult to work for the elderly. I'm visiting my grandmother now and watching the TV we had provided him, and it inserts ads into everything available to watch from the most accessible menu. The last ad block was 8 ads long, during which one of those was repeated twice, and had all the subtlety of a row of slot machines at a casino (I think it was for some silly tablet game which I assume has in-app purchases) Straight up cruelty that should result in some serious fines or even arrests.
  • kelipso 10mo ago
    I pretty much make it standard practice to get an apple tv or whatever streaming device for all tvs and not allow internet access to the tvs. You have zero control over the tv, so why subject yourself or others to it instead of getting a $50 to $150 device.
    • pcthrowaway 10mo ago
      > You have zero control over the tv, This. This is the problem. TVs with user-hostile firmware are the only options available. Imagine if the only beds available were smart beds that wake you up with advertisements and project ads onto your ceiling while you try to sleep. Honestly it seems like we're almost there
      • mystraline 10mo ago
        If we had an effective government, this would have already been solved by a FTC issue of fraudulent sale. If I sell a widget, but do not transfer full control to the buyer, that should be considered a fraudulent sale that was misclassified from a rental. Same for a computer. Same for a phone. Or a refrigerator. Or a car. (Old person comment incoming) I remember when working on hardware from the 70's and earlier, the manufacturers would glue in a full schematic on the back plate. Reparability was absolute. Now, its "how can we screw you over with cryptographic signing of individual hardware" Reparability and ownership go hand in hand. And it also strongly goes towards sustainability and ecology, with not needing as much resources. But the "Smart TV" in your comment, pcthrowaway, is that in 5 years, the 'Smart' OS will be either so slow to be unusable, die cause a $.10 part failed, or other really dumb ewaste reason.
• signatoremo 10mo ago
  Ads exist because options are available. There exists the need to stand out and differentiate the moment there are more than one choice for the consumers. Commercial ads didn't exist under communism for a reason. Your resume is ad. Cover letter is ad. Think about different word choices you made when creating your resume? If explicit advertising doesn't exist then implicit one will. Which one is worse? I'm sure you've seen all of the product placements on movies and shows.
  • tsimionescu 10mo ago
    Product placement is already illegal unless explicitly signposted (a specific state mark being shown on the screen while it is happening) in certain types of shows, in the EU at least.
  • account42 10mo ago
    Of course we all know that submitting a list of things you can do to places that have explicitly requested such lists is the same thing as blasting your crap in front of the eyes of everyone you can. No difference at all.
• kylecazar 10mo ago
  My own hypothesis is that our lives will become so saturated with ads that they will completely lose their effectiveness, advertisers and platforms will finally be forced to acknowledge that they aren't effective, and a monetization crisis will follow. Subscriptions everywhere.
  • ChrisMarshallNY 10mo ago
    Sounds like Japan. However, their ads are crazy "in your face." They haven't given up, at all. They doubled down.
  • tonymet 10mo ago
    It’s more like drugs in that they will be less effective , but not completely, so we will continue to get more exposures as advertisers compete for attention
  • roncesvalles 10mo ago
    They won't lose effectiveness because once in a while you will actually find something you want, click on the ad, and buy it. The reason there's ads everywhere is because they actually do work. It's not a hypothesis.
    • kylecazar 10mo ago
      I didn't claim what you think I did. I said that I hypothesize that they will become increasingly ineffective with time. Data already shows it's trending in that direction.
• adangert 10mo ago
  The main arguments I hear against banning all ads is that it will hurt small businesses, a better solution might be to ban all adds for companies making above X amount per year, or even better: create systems where users pay for ads themselves, then the incentives would switch to be in favor of consumers. In any case, totally agree, ad companies are out of control, I'm hoping more Kagi like services start appearing soon.
  • undersuit 10mo ago
    Banning companies above a size still allows a unhappy medium where only "small businesses" BUY the same horrible ads and we drop one or two Army or IBM ads from the lineup.
    • bad_haircut72 10mo ago
      No because small businesses arent hiring ad agencies who spent years studying psychology in order to manipulate people into doing what the company wants, not what the person wants. This is very much an issue of scale
      • undersuit 10mo ago
        That market is made when you ban "large companies" from making ads.
    • adangert 10mo ago
      Not everything has to be black and white, there is middle ground for improvement. I'm not sure anyone loves the same MegaCorp™ ad plastered all over buildings, highways and stoplights. The size, depth, and reach of the advertising industry is a direct result of the amount of money injected into it. The current ad industry is effective, awful, anti-competitive and resembles more of a cancer at this point than it's intended purpose to provide useful information.
• happypillow 10mo ago
  Then there needs to be stronger campaigns against addictive advertising (ironic) but we also need to enforce education about malicious advertising and marketing. People need the knowledge of how to defend themselves against advertising weapons. The current status quo is everyone for themselves. Even the too few volunteer shepherds (you) have no pull against giant money machines.
• zzo38computer 10mo ago
  > Time to ban all adverts everywhere. I think that is too much, but it should be almost entirely banned, with only very limited exceptions. Advertisements which you are specificailly looking for, such as catalogs for those specific things, could be one of those exceptions. However, even regardless of these exceptions, there will need to be limits, such as: do not be dishonest, do not emit light, do not waste power, do not spy on you, do not block the view of other things, do not try to prevent you from seeing them, they cannot pay you or give you discounts for seeing the ads, etc. > The time to negotiate a "middle ground" is long past. I think it will need to be a "nearly banned" ground rather than the "middle" ground, though. > Ad companies need to be reined in. They cannot control themselves. This part I agree with. > The only solution is [...] to make sure that anyone who gets that idea will never get it again. But, this part, I think that won't work. Even if it does work (which it won't), it is bad for freedom of speech and freedom of opinion.
• Lerc 10mo ago
  I think Advertising is the issue where I have the most radical views. I don't think it is a terribly controversial view anymore. In the past when taking to people about this I have asked them to come up with an example of something funded by advertising that has not been corrupted by it. In recent years nobody even wants to take up that challenge, it is far more common for them to concede I'm right on that point. It's a definite shift 8n public opinion but I'm still a bit wary when people change their views to agree with me when much of their world view seems unfounded. I don't really accept the us vs them narrative. I don't think billionaires are necessarily evil, I certainly don't think the solution to hyper-capitalism is to abandon all elements of society (which seems to be a growing belief), or that socialism an capitalism are fundamentally incompatible. I'd like people to agree with me about the properties of a thing rather than by whether proponents of it are on you tr8be or an opposing tribe. I'd like a free society where that freedom is limited only by the harm you can do to others. Prevention of harm should be through robust and evidence based regulation. I think there is a good case to be made that all advertising is harmful to some extent. There are certainly examples that are clearly harmful evading any form of regulation. When people break the rules that currently exist, what motivation do the6 hav3 to mitigate their behaviour? This is a failure of government. I'm not sure if adding more rules that can be broken with impunity would help. Regulators need the power to inflict punishment that rule breakers actually feel. Enough that it is logical for even an amoral entity to obey the rules. That doesn't seem like a complicated thing, but I feel like it would go a long way healing society.
• teemur 10mo ago
  I think a decent middle ground would be to allow contextual advertising and ban personalized advertising. That is, it would be fine to show you ads based on where you are, what you are doing or what you are searching on the internet, but not based on what you did on another website or where you had lunch yesterday. Of course this would add friction for finding the appropriate targets but it would still allow pretty decent business for adtech. it just would be a bit different. (I'm pretty sure that the line between contextual and personalized ads is blurry, but I leave that to be solved by lawmakers and judges. Its kind of their core competence. And to be clear, what I personally think should be done would be much, much stricter ban, but this is a compromise proposal I think should be agreeable by all parties who are the slightest interested in the harm current adtech is doing)
• Animats 10mo ago
  > Time to ban all adverts everywhere. Taxing them is an option. Disallow advertising and marketing as a deductible business expense. You can still advertise, but it comes out of the bottom line. This encourages putting more money into product value and less into promotion.
• fasterik 10mo ago
  I tend to think that banning things is almost never the right answer. Who gets to decide what counts as an ad? What's stopping governments from designating speech they don't like as an ad?
• Refreeze5224 10mo ago
  The harm they cause is so massive compared to the small amount of benefit. Everyone got along just fine when they had to go look for the things they wanted (like with a search engine!), or they did without.
• wdr1 10mo ago
  > Time to ban all adverts everywhere. I'm not the only one who is fed up with ads. This is a terrible idea. Users should have choice & control. I'll say something that on the surface level seems controversial, at least to HN: Some users prefer ads. And those users should be allowed that choice. Ads are part of a value exchange. It's disingenuous, imho, to frame the question as "Do you want 'X' with or without ads?" Absent any other criteria most people would naturally say without ads. But I feel it's disingenuous because it overlooks the value exchange. A better example: Would you prefer Netflix with ads for $7.99/month with ads, or $17.99/month without ads? A lot of people are choosing the ads tiers. It's the fastest growing tier. Personally, I have the ads-free tier, but I can make that choice for myself. The people wanting the ads tier should be able to make that choice too. I don't see the value in taking it away from them. I don't deny there are bad experiences. I do think Samsung is making a mistake & damaging customer trust with the refrigerator thing. I likely won't be buying one in the future. Like anything, advertising can be done well or it can be done badly. I don't use Instagram myself, but I have a lot of friends who love fashion who do & say they're on their to follow brands & find deals. They find the ads a good way to discover some new fashion product & snag a good discount. Likewise Amazon sent a catalog to my house. My kids are using it to think of what they want to ask Santa. A catalog is basically a book of ads.
  • fasterik 10mo ago
    This is one of the major political problems of the 21st century, convincing people that many of the problems they see in society are in fact free choices made by individuals, and not necessarily something that needs to be fixed from the top down. The human tendency to impose one's own preferences on others is strong, and it seems every generation needs to learn the lesson anew.
  • isthatafact 10mo ago
    Freedom from ads seems like a fundamental human right, and necessary for freedom of thought. "Unskippable" ads seem incompatible with freedom of thought. > "Users should have choice & control." Given that people currently are not able to choose to be free from advertisements in any practical way, even if abstaining from luxuries, some sort of severe regulation seems necessary.
• 29athrowaway 10mo ago
  Ads are the main drivers of ruining the Internet that we once enjoyed.
• NedF 10mo ago
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