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The proposal was to "outlaw compensation for advertising". That would presumably include paying people to create ads and not just to publish them, hence the fir

The proposal was to "outlaw compensation for advertising". That would presumably include paying people to create ads and not just to publish them, hence the first example. What you're arguing is that the first example is different from the second one, but they were intended to be, because they map to two different parts of the process. > The customer is (presumably) purchasing a product and is reading the documentation to understand how to operate it. Product documentation is also available to prospective customers so they can review it to decide whether they want to purchase the product. And then the question is, how do they get it? There are many ways to distribute. They could pay to print it out on paper and put it in the lobby in their corporate offices, but then customers would have to come to their corporate headquarters to get it, which most won't do, so obviously some methods of distribution have a higher likelihood of being seen. Then companies will prefer the ones that allow them to be seen more. But they're paying someone for any of them, so "is paying for it" isn't a useful way to distinguish them. And then we're back to, suppose you pay Facebook to host your documents on your company's Facebook page. Furthermore suppose that they, like most hosting companies, charge you more money if you get more traffic. Meanwhile their "hosting customers" on the "free tier" (i.e. ordinary Facebook users) have a very small quota which is really only enough for their posts to be seen by their own friends. So paying them for distribution -- like paying for any other form of distribution -- causes your documents to have better visibility. Now you can show up in the feed of more people before you run out of quota, just like paying more for hosting means more people could visit your website before you exceed your transfer allowance. How do you tell if someone is paying for computing resources or eyeballs when the same company provides both? Notice that "don't let them do both" is a bit of a problem if you also don't let them sell advertising, because if they can't sell ads or charge for using the service then what are they doing for revenue?

jason_oster 9mo ago
Indeed, advertisers would layoff or displace their marketing teams, as the role would have no value to the company if advertising was outlawed (meanwhile, technical writers would be just fine). I'm not disputing that. I'm disputing the framing you put forth that equates advertising with technical writing. > Product documentation is also available to prospective customers so they can review it to decide whether they want to purchase the product. I agree with this statement, but it is irrelevant. The primary purpose of documentation is what I said: for understanding how to operate the product. The only purpose of advertising is to make a sale. Advertising has no secondary purpose. These are not the same thing. The test is quite simple: Is the sole purpose of the payment to make a sale? If so, it is advertising. We don't really need to discuss documents any longer. Documentation is not an advertisement.
- AnthonyMouse 9mo ago
  > Indeed, advertisers would layoff or displace their marketing teams, as the role would have no value to the company if advertising was outlawed They would obviously redeploy them to drafting or working to influence whatever means exists that still allows them to get new customers. > The primary purpose of documentation is what I said: for understanding how to operate the product. The only purpose of advertising is to make a sale. Advertising has no secondary purpose. These are not the same thing. This is like saying the primary purpose of advertising is to display media content. The only purpose of the entire company is to make a sale. They ship the product from the factory to retail stores because that makes more sales than requiring the customer to come to the factory. They write documentation because more customers are willing to buy a product with documentation. And the documentation carefully portrays the product in a favorable light and directs customers to the company's own offerings -- how often do you see a commercial product's documentation recommending that the customer use a competitor's product under circumstances when that would actually be to the customer's advantage? Meanwhile advertising also has secondary functions as well, like informing customers of product features they might not have been aware of, or informing them of risks or drawbacks of competing products, or providing active rather than passive notification for time-sensitive information like that a sale is happening, etc.
  - jason_oster 9mo ago
    > This is like saying the primary purpose of advertising is to display media content. No, the only purpose - and therefore the primary purpose - of advertising is to make a sale. You are arguing economics. And while that is a valid stance, it is not the only point of view. You might even be arguing that word of mouth is advertising. That doesn't fit the definition of paying some party with an expectation of a larger return. That's the only part of advertising that needs to be addressed (e.g., banned or reformed). The part that is most harmful. Word of mouth and other means of non-exploitative ways to gain customers are completely reasonable. You're trying to weasel your way to finding some inescapable loophole for some reason that I cannot understand. There's no need to protect predatory behavior like advertising. > how often do you see a commercial product's documentation recommending that the customer use a competitor's product under circumstances when that would actually be to the customer's advantage? Since you are really digging into semantics, here, I'll bite. The documentation doesn't need to explicitly say this. It implies that the product's feature set may not fit the user's needs by their very descriptions. The user will go to a competitor on their own accord when those features do not meet their needs. > Meanwhile advertising also has secondary functions as well, like informing customers of product features they might not have been aware of, or informing them of risks or drawbacks of competing products, or providing active rather than passive notification for time-sensitive information like that a sale is happening, etc. The products themselves do that. The company's website, brochure, or product catalog have the information. They don't need to broadcast the widest net possible with the MicroMachines guy speedrunning their feature list to fit a 60-second ad spot. In fact, ads have such space and time constraints that the pertinent information literally cannot fit the allocation. Ads can only give very brief and very high level tidbits. It's a terrible model for information dispersal. On the other hand, infomercials are 30 or 60 minute advertisements that tend to repeat the same thing ad infinitum. There's only so much you can say about knives, sunglasses, or exercise equipment. And yet, we have QVC. But here's the thing: I don't have to watch QVC. QVC isn't embedded into every website. Although, plenty of low effort news sites really like to pin an autoplay video to the corner of my screen when I scroll down. These are nuisances. Somebody paying someone else to force me to watch or read something in the hopes that I will make a purchase. No. Just no. There's a good reason popups have been blocked on browsers by default for 20 years. Advertising is overly aggressive, and the margins are so piss poor that publishers are effectively getting ripped off by ad revenue. It's insulting to publishers and much worse to consumers. At least on Twitch, the largest contributors to a streamer's income are donations, subscriptions, bits, and Twitch Turbo viewers. Possibly in that order. Ads are worth practically nothing. Shroud is one of the most highly paid streamers on Twitch/YouTube. He recently described that his YouTube ad revenue nets between $5,000-$9,000 per month [1]. This might seem like a lot, but his gross income is estimated to be up to $10 million to $12 million per year [2]. YouTube ads account for approximately between 0.5% and 1% of his income. Smaller publishers (e.g., content creators) don't even break double digit ad revenues per month [3]. Please, stop defending advertising. It is indefensible. It's bad for everyone. [1]: https://www.dexerto.com/youtube/shroud-leaks-youtube-revenue-but-it-is-not-as-much-as-youd-think-3041803/ https://www.dexerto.com/youtube/shroud-leaks-youtube-revenue... [2]: https://www.msn.com/en-in/sports/other/michael-grzesiek-s-net-worth-how-he-turned-gaming-skills-into-a-40-million-empire/ar-AA1ShNYX https://www.msn.com/en-in/sports/other/michael-grzesiek-s-ne... [3]: https://www.mogul.club/blogposts/how-much-do-twitch-streamers-make----a-comprehensive-guide https://www.mogul.club/blogposts/how-much-do-twitch-streamer...

jason_oster 9mo ago

Indeed, advertisers would layoff or displace their marketing teams, as the role would have no value to the company if advertising was outlawed (meanwhile, technical writers would be just fine). I'm not disputing that. I'm disputing the framing you put forth that equates advertising with technical writing. > Product documentation is also available to prospective customers so they can review it to decide whether they want to purchase the product. I agree with this statement, but it is irrelevant. The primary purpose of documentation is what I said: for understanding how to operate the product. The only purpose of advertising is to make a sale. Advertising has no secondary purpose. These are not the same thing. The test is quite simple: Is the sole purpose of the payment to make a sale? If so, it is advertising. We don't really need to discuss documents any longer. Documentation is not an advertisement.

AnthonyMouse 9mo ago
> Indeed, advertisers would layoff or displace their marketing teams, as the role would have no value to the company if advertising was outlawed They would obviously redeploy them to drafting or working to influence whatever means exists that still allows them to get new customers. > The primary purpose of documentation is what I said: for understanding how to operate the product. The only purpose of advertising is to make a sale. Advertising has no secondary purpose. These are not the same thing. This is like saying the primary purpose of advertising is to display media content. The only purpose of the entire company is to make a sale. They ship the product from the factory to retail stores because that makes more sales than requiring the customer to come to the factory. They write documentation because more customers are willing to buy a product with documentation. And the documentation carefully portrays the product in a favorable light and directs customers to the company's own offerings -- how often do you see a commercial product's documentation recommending that the customer use a competitor's product under circumstances when that would actually be to the customer's advantage? Meanwhile advertising also has secondary functions as well, like informing customers of product features they might not have been aware of, or informing them of risks or drawbacks of competing products, or providing active rather than passive notification for time-sensitive information like that a sale is happening, etc.
- jason_oster 9mo ago
  > This is like saying the primary purpose of advertising is to display media content. No, the only purpose - and therefore the primary purpose - of advertising is to make a sale. You are arguing economics. And while that is a valid stance, it is not the only point of view. You might even be arguing that word of mouth is advertising. That doesn't fit the definition of paying some party with an expectation of a larger return. That's the only part of advertising that needs to be addressed (e.g., banned or reformed). The part that is most harmful. Word of mouth and other means of non-exploitative ways to gain customers are completely reasonable. You're trying to weasel your way to finding some inescapable loophole for some reason that I cannot understand. There's no need to protect predatory behavior like advertising. > how often do you see a commercial product's documentation recommending that the customer use a competitor's product under circumstances when that would actually be to the customer's advantage? Since you are really digging into semantics, here, I'll bite. The documentation doesn't need to explicitly say this. It implies that the product's feature set may not fit the user's needs by their very descriptions. The user will go to a competitor on their own accord when those features do not meet their needs. > Meanwhile advertising also has secondary functions as well, like informing customers of product features they might not have been aware of, or informing them of risks or drawbacks of competing products, or providing active rather than passive notification for time-sensitive information like that a sale is happening, etc. The products themselves do that. The company's website, brochure, or product catalog have the information. They don't need to broadcast the widest net possible with the MicroMachines guy speedrunning their feature list to fit a 60-second ad spot. In fact, ads have such space and time constraints that the pertinent information literally cannot fit the allocation. Ads can only give very brief and very high level tidbits. It's a terrible model for information dispersal. On the other hand, infomercials are 30 or 60 minute advertisements that tend to repeat the same thing ad infinitum. There's only so much you can say about knives, sunglasses, or exercise equipment. And yet, we have QVC. But here's the thing: I don't have to watch QVC. QVC isn't embedded into every website. Although, plenty of low effort news sites really like to pin an autoplay video to the corner of my screen when I scroll down. These are nuisances. Somebody paying someone else to force me to watch or read something in the hopes that I will make a purchase. No. Just no. There's a good reason popups have been blocked on browsers by default for 20 years. Advertising is overly aggressive, and the margins are so piss poor that publishers are effectively getting ripped off by ad revenue. It's insulting to publishers and much worse to consumers. At least on Twitch, the largest contributors to a streamer's income are donations, subscriptions, bits, and Twitch Turbo viewers. Possibly in that order. Ads are worth practically nothing. Shroud is one of the most highly paid streamers on Twitch/YouTube. He recently described that his YouTube ad revenue nets between $5,000-$9,000 per month [1]. This might seem like a lot, but his gross income is estimated to be up to $10 million to $12 million per year [2]. YouTube ads account for approximately between 0.5% and 1% of his income. Smaller publishers (e.g., content creators) don't even break double digit ad revenues per month [3]. Please, stop defending advertising. It is indefensible. It's bad for everyone. [1]: https://www.dexerto.com/youtube/shroud-leaks-youtube-revenue-but-it-is-not-as-much-as-youd-think-3041803/ https://www.dexerto.com/youtube/shroud-leaks-youtube-revenue... [2]: https://www.msn.com/en-in/sports/other/michael-grzesiek-s-net-worth-how-he-turned-gaming-skills-into-a-40-million-empire/ar-AA1ShNYX https://www.msn.com/en-in/sports/other/michael-grzesiek-s-ne... [3]: https://www.mogul.club/blogposts/how-much-do-twitch-streamers-make----a-comprehensive-guide https://www.mogul.club/blogposts/how-much-do-twitch-streamer...