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To those who believe ads are evil and must be stopped, I ask how the world will work if we kill the freedom to sell space for commercial messages where people c

To those who believe ads are evil and must be stopped, I ask how the world will work if we kill the freedom to sell space for commercial messages where people can see them.

dkdcio 9mo ago
just fine? what do you think would happen/what’s your actual argument against out of curiosity
- skeltoac 9mo ago
  Advertising is how I learned about lots of things I am glad I learned about. I am furious about lots of the ads that I see. I want to stop certain kinds of advertising. I live where there are no billboards allowed and I love that. But I want to live in a world where people can pay to have their messages displayed where they will be seen. Simply because banning that activity would cripple the flow of information. That’s what advertising is. If you want to ban a particular form of advertising then say what and why. The “ban all ads” thing just doesn’t make sense.
  - dkdcio 9mo ago
    information flows fine without paid ads, and with much better incentives > people can pay to have their messages displayed where they will be seen …why? distribution of information is free across the world, which was not the case a century ago. let the message speak for itself I ask again, what’s your actual argument against? you’ve seen things through ads you’ve liked? you think people should be allowed to pay to put their thumbs on the scale of the distribution of information? to what end?
    - skeltoac 9mo ago
      What do you propose to ban? How do you define it? You want a policy, so write the policy and let me read it. I have a very broad idea of what ads are. Maybe you don’t. Say what you mean by paid ads. Am I allowed to offer and accept compensation for boosting one message above others, or not? Would I be allowed to place a hyperlink on my site in exchange for a reciprocal hyperlink? That’s a clear example of compensated communication. That’s what I think ads are. Imagine the ad police. “You blogged about a product. Someone said you sounded insincere. Let’s see the receipt for purchase. Can’t prove you bought it? Prove you weren’t compensated for your blog post or pay a fine.” Kafka land.
      - dkdcio 9mo ago
        > Imagine the ad police. “You blogged about a product. Someone said you sounded insincere. Let’s see the receipt for purchase. Can’t prove you bought it? Prove you weren’t compensated for your blog post or pay a fine.” Kafka land. immediately to a fantasy slippery slope argument, cool! your argument seems to boil down to paid ads being the lifeblood of the flow of information. my argument is it corrupts that flow of information, and we’d be better without them —- everything would operate just fine. individuals and organizations would have better incentives to share valuable information, not what they get paid to. obviously there would be plenty of details and edge cases to work out, as with any policy in the real world I’m not going to write out policy in HackerNews comments and play that game with someone who jumps to the “imagine this crazy world where the police start arresting all of us over free speech!” as their explanation for what would go wrong
      - hollerith 9mo ago
        The US already has what you call an ad police: for decades, it has been unlawful to make false statements in an ad and to accept any money for advertising (or endorsement or sponsorship) without making it plain to the viewer which parts of the content are ads and which are not. Since the US Federal Trade Commission can smoothly enforce the second of those two rules, what makes you think it cannot smoothly enforce an outright ban on ads? "Smoothly": you seem to have been unaware that the second of the rules I described existed, and you probably would have been aware if the enforcement had yielded anything deserving of the name "kafka land".
mwcz 9mo ago
In general I think the answer could be pretty simple: dedicated marketplaces for products and services, where we go to search for the things we need and want. A humble newspaper contains great examples of good and bad advertising. Newspapers have whole pages of bad ads, and random bad ads wedged between actual content. Ads have a perverse incentive to mimic the look of actual content, just like on the web. I'd never pick up a newspaper with a goal of "I want to find a tax service" and yet ads for such services are there, unwanted, wedged into other content. But newspapers also have classified sections, a better kind of ad. They're in a predictable place, where you can go if you need a job. Imagine if the actual content weren't perforated by a scattershot of ads. Ad revenue would go down, but readership would likely go up. Besides profit motives, it's also a case of the good of the many outweighing the good of the few.
- skeltoac 9mo ago
  Others like myself do consider the ads when we read the newspaper. I find out about events and local companies that way. I don’t see many print ads that confuse me as to whether they are paid advertisements at a glance.
yoyohello13 9mo ago
I don't think ads are evil, but the techniques used to get eyes are evil. Using fear, hate, desire to get people to click has a negative impact on society. I don't think ads should be banned, but engineering 'engagement' definitely should.
- hackable_sand 9mo ago
  Ads should be banned
  - skeltoac 9mo ago
    What is and what is not an ad? What exactly do you want to ban?
- skeltoac 9mo ago
  I agree!
fenwick67 9mo ago
I am now imagining a "A Case Of Spring Fever" style educational film about how ads are good actually
aniviacat 9mo ago
What are you worried will happen? ChatGPT releases and noone will know? Anyone interested in staying up to date with new technology can read a tech newspaper. That newspaper is paid by the readers, so its incentive is to show actually interesting products. It is not paid by some random company whose product might be bad or outright malicious.
- skeltoac 9mo ago
  Depends on what exactly gets banned. What is an ad? What isn’t? Must all information be paid for by the audience? I wish someone would tell me what this ban is supposed to cover. I worry that innovators and small businesses won’t be able to get their message out efficiently. You won’t be able to display your message on anyone else’s property. You won’t be able to take any compensation for promoting anything.
  - aniviacat 9mo ago
    > What is an ad? What isn’t? Anything wie usually consider an ad/sponsored content/boosted content. That includes ad banners, video sponsors, boosted posts, billboards, etc. Really any way that a third party pays some organization to put certain content on their space (be it physical or digital) to be seen by people who are probably there for other reasons than to see that content. An exact definition fortunately isn't necessary, since our legal system is well adapted to deal with terms that are difficult to define. > Must all information be paid for by the audience? Other monetization paths are still possible. E.g. some SaaS orgs could still run blogs to gain mind share, as they do now. Hopefully most information will be paid for by the audience though. > I worry that innovators and small businesses won’t be able to get their message out efficiently. If ads are no longer a thing, people will find other means to get information. You mentioned in another comment that you like ads in newspapers telling you about some local stores and events. If the readers are genuinely interested in this, the newspaper can still put that information there. Just instead of the highest bidder, they'll put the ones that are genuinely interesting. Of course, if your product is not worth reading about, it will suddenly be much more difficult to promote it. In my opinion, that is a good thing.

To those who believe ads are evil and must be stopped, I ask how the world will work if we kill the freedom to sell space for commercial messages where people can see them.

dkdcio 9mo ago

just fine? what do you think would happen/what’s your actual argument against out of curiosity

skeltoac 9mo ago
Advertising is how I learned about lots of things I am glad I learned about. I am furious about lots of the ads that I see. I want to stop certain kinds of advertising. I live where there are no billboards allowed and I love that. But I want to live in a world where people can pay to have their messages displayed where they will be seen. Simply because banning that activity would cripple the flow of information. That’s what advertising is. If you want to ban a particular form of advertising then say what and why. The “ban all ads” thing just doesn’t make sense.
- dkdcio 9mo ago
  information flows fine without paid ads, and with much better incentives > people can pay to have their messages displayed where they will be seen …why? distribution of information is free across the world, which was not the case a century ago. let the message speak for itself I ask again, what’s your actual argument against? you’ve seen things through ads you’ve liked? you think people should be allowed to pay to put their thumbs on the scale of the distribution of information? to what end?
  - skeltoac 9mo ago
    What do you propose to ban? How do you define it? You want a policy, so write the policy and let me read it. I have a very broad idea of what ads are. Maybe you don’t. Say what you mean by paid ads. Am I allowed to offer and accept compensation for boosting one message above others, or not? Would I be allowed to place a hyperlink on my site in exchange for a reciprocal hyperlink? That’s a clear example of compensated communication. That’s what I think ads are. Imagine the ad police. “You blogged about a product. Someone said you sounded insincere. Let’s see the receipt for purchase. Can’t prove you bought it? Prove you weren’t compensated for your blog post or pay a fine.” Kafka land.
    - dkdcio 9mo ago
      > Imagine the ad police. “You blogged about a product. Someone said you sounded insincere. Let’s see the receipt for purchase. Can’t prove you bought it? Prove you weren’t compensated for your blog post or pay a fine.” Kafka land. immediately to a fantasy slippery slope argument, cool! your argument seems to boil down to paid ads being the lifeblood of the flow of information. my argument is it corrupts that flow of information, and we’d be better without them —- everything would operate just fine. individuals and organizations would have better incentives to share valuable information, not what they get paid to. obviously there would be plenty of details and edge cases to work out, as with any policy in the real world I’m not going to write out policy in HackerNews comments and play that game with someone who jumps to the “imagine this crazy world where the police start arresting all of us over free speech!” as their explanation for what would go wrong
    - hollerith 9mo ago
      The US already has what you call an ad police: for decades, it has been unlawful to make false statements in an ad and to accept any money for advertising (or endorsement or sponsorship) without making it plain to the viewer which parts of the content are ads and which are not. Since the US Federal Trade Commission can smoothly enforce the second of those two rules, what makes you think it cannot smoothly enforce an outright ban on ads? "Smoothly": you seem to have been unaware that the second of the rules I described existed, and you probably would have been aware if the enforcement had yielded anything deserving of the name "kafka land".

mwcz 9mo ago

In general I think the answer could be pretty simple: dedicated marketplaces for products and services, where we go to search for the things we need and want. A humble newspaper contains great examples of good and bad advertising. Newspapers have whole pages of bad ads, and random bad ads wedged between actual content. Ads have a perverse incentive to mimic the look of actual content, just like on the web. I'd never pick up a newspaper with a goal of "I want to find a tax service" and yet ads for such services are there, unwanted, wedged into other content. But newspapers also have classified sections, a better kind of ad. They're in a predictable place, where you can go if you need a job. Imagine if the actual content weren't perforated by a scattershot of ads. Ad revenue would go down, but readership would likely go up. Besides profit motives, it's also a case of the good of the many outweighing the good of the few.

skeltoac 9mo ago
Others like myself do consider the ads when we read the newspaper. I find out about events and local companies that way. I don’t see many print ads that confuse me as to whether they are paid advertisements at a glance.

yoyohello13 9mo ago

I don't think ads are evil, but the techniques used to get eyes are evil. Using fear, hate, desire to get people to click has a negative impact on society. I don't think ads should be banned, but engineering 'engagement' definitely should.

hackable_sand 9mo ago
Ads should be banned
- skeltoac 9mo ago
  What is and what is not an ad? What exactly do you want to ban?
skeltoac 9mo ago
I agree!

fenwick67 9mo ago

I am now imagining a "A Case Of Spring Fever" style educational film about how ads are good actually

aniviacat 9mo ago

What are you worried will happen? ChatGPT releases and noone will know? Anyone interested in staying up to date with new technology can read a tech newspaper. That newspaper is paid by the readers, so its incentive is to show actually interesting products. It is not paid by some random company whose product might be bad or outright malicious.

skeltoac 9mo ago
Depends on what exactly gets banned. What is an ad? What isn’t? Must all information be paid for by the audience? I wish someone would tell me what this ban is supposed to cover. I worry that innovators and small businesses won’t be able to get their message out efficiently. You won’t be able to display your message on anyone else’s property. You won’t be able to take any compensation for promoting anything.
- aniviacat 9mo ago
  > What is an ad? What isn’t? Anything wie usually consider an ad/sponsored content/boosted content. That includes ad banners, video sponsors, boosted posts, billboards, etc. Really any way that a third party pays some organization to put certain content on their space (be it physical or digital) to be seen by people who are probably there for other reasons than to see that content. An exact definition fortunately isn't necessary, since our legal system is well adapted to deal with terms that are difficult to define. > Must all information be paid for by the audience? Other monetization paths are still possible. E.g. some SaaS orgs could still run blogs to gain mind share, as they do now. Hopefully most information will be paid for by the audience though. > I worry that innovators and small businesses won’t be able to get their message out efficiently. If ads are no longer a thing, people will find other means to get information. You mentioned in another comment that you like ads in newspapers telling you about some local stores and events. If the readers are genuinely interested in this, the newspaper can still put that information there. Just instead of the highest bidder, they'll put the ones that are genuinely interesting. Of course, if your product is not worth reading about, it will suddenly be much more difficult to promote it. In my opinion, that is a good thing.