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Marketers have a term for this - "breaking through the noise". I call it pissing in the pool. I hope one day we see paid advertising as immoral. Immoral acts

Marketers have a term for this - "breaking through the noise". I call it pissing in the pool. I hope one day we see paid advertising as immoral. Immoral acts can be defined as negative sum on society but possibly positive to the individual. A working society agrees, culturally, to think negatively on negative sum behavior. Social animals do this too - even vampire bats ( https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4685829/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4685829/ ) The issue with paid advertising is that it is more difficult to understand how it is a negative externality. There's also the fact that so many make their living on it these days that it's tough to get them to believe they're doing something wrong. But imagine all the distraction and labor we could avoid if we could agree that it is not right. Advertising is the always hungry beast that even a post scarcity society would starve feeding.

butlike 1mo ago
You just nailed something for me, so I wanted to say "thank you." It's the _PAID_ advertising that's the issue. I've been struggling with hating advertising, yet having difficulties reconciling how I would know about anything I like if it wasn't advertised. But it's the PAID advertising that spurs the creation of advertisements with spectacle and cheap shit that ends up in landfills and the oceans.
- bamboozled 1mo ago
  You just realised people pay for advertising ?
  - poncho_romero 1mo ago
    I think they've realized there is a meaningful distinction between Google's search ads and someone recommending a product with no ulterior motives.
  - xboxnolifes 1mo ago
    No, he's saying that unpaid advertising is fine. Thats basically what words of mouth is.
zby 1mo ago
Advertising has a positive function - currently we don't have better (market based) was to make it working other than via paid advertising. The first step is to find the new business models.

butlike 1mo ago

You just nailed something for me, so I wanted to say "thank you." It's the _PAID_ advertising that's the issue. I've been struggling with hating advertising, yet having difficulties reconciling how I would know about anything I like if it wasn't advertised. But it's the PAID advertising that spurs the creation of advertisements with spectacle and cheap shit that ends up in landfills and the oceans.

bamboozled 1mo ago
You just realised people pay for advertising ?
- poncho_romero 1mo ago
  I think they've realized there is a meaningful distinction between Google's search ads and someone recommending a product with no ulterior motives.
- xboxnolifes 1mo ago
  No, he's saying that unpaid advertising is fine. Thats basically what words of mouth is.

zby 1mo ago

Advertising has a positive function - currently we don't have better (market based) was to make it working other than via paid advertising. The first step is to find the new business models.