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> 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

> 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...

AnthonyMouse 8mo ago
> No, the only purpose - and therefore the primary purpose - of advertising is to make a sale. Even this isn't true. There are ads like this whose purpose is to encourage girls to learn to code: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o5fd7l2Uz0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o5fd7l2Uz0 In general there is the entire category of issue advertising where someone is trying to convince someone to do something rather than buy something. Non-profits also advertise to solicit donations, without which they would have a lot of trouble existing. There are also ads for things like jobs where they're trying to hire someone rather than sell something and it's easier for everyone for the employer to take out a help wanted ad and the job-seeker to read the help wanted section than for everyone who wants a job to each try to identify who is hiring by visiting the listings page of every company in the world. In modern day people use job search sites rather than newspaper classified sections, but those are the same thing -- the revenue of those sites is from listings or placement, i.e. the listings are ads, and if they weren't charging for that they would have no revenue to cover their expenses. Even Craigslist charges for job postings and car listings etc. and indeed that's how even they keep the lights on. Likewise, eBay is an advertising company by your definition. You pay them in order to make a sale, they display the ad for your product on their website in exchange for money. Are we banning eBay, or how are you going to distinguish it from Facebook Marketplace? > Word of mouth and other means of non-exploitative ways to gain customers are completely reasonable. That's pretty quickly going to lead to atroturfing which is even worse than advertising because at least ads tell you they're ads. > 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. Would you accept that line of reasoning if it was applied to "advertising"? The company knows better than a neophyte prospective customer the areas where their product is lacking or a competitor's is superior and is choosing to tell you the things that benefit them and not the things that don't. > 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. What if sometimes they do? Suppose you overstocked some product and you need to get it out of your warehouse to make room for other products that will be delivered next week. So you lower the price, and you can publish the lower price on your website, but you need prospective customers to know about the lower price right now, not in six months when they next visit your website, because you need that stuff out of your warehouse in the next 7 days. And they need to know about the lower price right now because that stock will only be available for a week, so checking the website twice a year would cause them to miss the discounted price. So how do you make thousands of prospective customers aware of a time-sensitive discount without making them check prices every day? > Advertising is overly aggressive That seems like a different problem, i.e. you need a better ad blocker rather than a ban on advertising. > the margins are so piss poor that publishers are effectively getting ripped off by ad revenue. This again seems like a separate problem. Nobody is requiring publishers to use advertising instead of charging for subscriptions in order for companies to be able to buy ads on search engines or billboards or television.

AnthonyMouse 8mo ago

> No, the only purpose - and therefore the primary purpose - of advertising is to make a sale. Even this isn't true. There are ads like this whose purpose is to encourage girls to learn to code: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o5fd7l2Uz0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o5fd7l2Uz0 In general there is the entire category of issue advertising where someone is trying to convince someone to do something rather than buy something. Non-profits also advertise to solicit donations, without which they would have a lot of trouble existing. There are also ads for things like jobs where they're trying to hire someone rather than sell something and it's easier for everyone for the employer to take out a help wanted ad and the job-seeker to read the help wanted section than for everyone who wants a job to each try to identify who is hiring by visiting the listings page of every company in the world. In modern day people use job search sites rather than newspaper classified sections, but those are the same thing -- the revenue of those sites is from listings or placement, i.e. the listings are ads, and if they weren't charging for that they would have no revenue to cover their expenses. Even Craigslist charges for job postings and car listings etc. and indeed that's how even they keep the lights on. Likewise, eBay is an advertising company by your definition. You pay them in order to make a sale, they display the ad for your product on their website in exchange for money. Are we banning eBay, or how are you going to distinguish it from Facebook Marketplace? > Word of mouth and other means of non-exploitative ways to gain customers are completely reasonable. That's pretty quickly going to lead to atroturfing which is even worse than advertising because at least ads tell you they're ads. > 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. Would you accept that line of reasoning if it was applied to "advertising"? The company knows better than a neophyte prospective customer the areas where their product is lacking or a competitor's is superior and is choosing to tell you the things that benefit them and not the things that don't. > 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. What if sometimes they do? Suppose you overstocked some product and you need to get it out of your warehouse to make room for other products that will be delivered next week. So you lower the price, and you can publish the lower price on your website, but you need prospective customers to know about the lower price right now, not in six months when they next visit your website, because you need that stuff out of your warehouse in the next 7 days. And they need to know about the lower price right now because that stock will only be available for a week, so checking the website twice a year would cause them to miss the discounted price. So how do you make thousands of prospective customers aware of a time-sensitive discount without making them check prices every day? > Advertising is overly aggressive That seems like a different problem, i.e. you need a better ad blocker rather than a ban on advertising. > the margins are so piss poor that publishers are effectively getting ripped off by ad revenue. This again seems like a separate problem. Nobody is requiring publishers to use advertising instead of charging for subscriptions in order for companies to be able to buy ads on search engines or billboards or television.