by smnrg on 4/5/25, 5:57 PM with 1386 comments
by gcp123 on 4/5/25, 8:15 PM
The part that really struck me was framing advertising and propaganda as essentially the same mechanism - just with different masters. Having built targeting systems myself, this rings painfully true. The mechanical difference between getting someone to buy sneakers versus vote for a candidate is surprisingly small.
What's frustrating is how the tech community keeps treating the symptoms while ignoring the disease. We debate content moderation policies and algorithmic transparency, but rarely question the underlying attention marketplace that makes manipulation profitable in the first place.
The uncomfortable truth: most of us in tech understand that today's advertising systems are fundamentally parasitic. We've built something that converts human attention into money with increasingly terrifying efficiency, but we're all trapped in a prisoner's dilemma where nobody can unilaterally disarm.
Try this thought experiment from the article - imagine a world without advertising. Products would still exist. Commerce would still happen. Information would still flow. We'd just be freed from the increasingly sophisticated machinery designed to override our decision-making.
Is this proposal radical? Absolutely. But sometimes the Overton window needs a sledgehammer.
P.S. If you are curious about the relationship between Sigmund Freud, propaganda, and the origins of the ad industry, check out the documentary “Century of the Self”.
by dash2 on 4/6/25, 9:09 AM
* Total fantasy to think you wouldn't fall afoul of free speech, both legally (in the US) and morally.
In fact, the author touts as a benefit that you'd stop populists being able to talk to their audience. This is destroying the village of liberal democracy in order to save it!
* Absolutely zero thought has been given to how to police the boundaries. Giving a paid speech? Free gifts for influencers? Rewards for signing up a friend?
* Products need marketing. You don't just magically know what to buy. Advertising fulfils an important social role. Yes, I know it can be annoying/intrusive/creepy. "In our information-saturated world, ads manipulate, but they don't inform" is an evidence-free assertion.
* Banning billboards or other public advertising? Fine. Not new. Done all over the place for commonsensical reasons.
* Any article that talks about "blurry, “out-of-focus fascism”—that sense of discomfort that you feel but can't quite point out" is itself blurry and out-of focus, not to say absurd and hyperbolic. Calling a mild sense of psychological discomfort "fascism" is just embarrassing.
by toomim on 4/5/25, 6:15 PM
The courts already distinguish "commercial speech" as a class of speech. Would we prevent all forms of commercial speech? What about a waiter asking you "would you like to try a rosé with that dish? It pairs very well together." Is that "advertising" that would need to be outlawed?
What about giving out free samples? Is that advertising, and thus should be illegal?
What about putting a sign up on your business that says the business name? Is that advertising?
I hate advertising and propaganda. But the hard part IMO is drawing the line. Where's the line?
by stego-tech on 4/5/25, 7:55 PM
The internet became usable after implementing the Pi-Hole. So much noise, so much wasted bandwidth, so many unnecessary lookups, gone with a Raspberry Pi and a few packages.
While other commenters are getting into the technical weeds of things, the reality is that the OP is right. Ads don’t inform, they manipulate. They’re an abusive forced-marriage that we cannot withdraw from even with ad and script blockers, because so much of society is built upon the advertising sector that it’s impossible to fully escape them. People like the OP and us are mocked for moves to block billboards in space as being “alarmist” or out of touch, yet driving along any highway in the USA will bombard you with ads on billboards, on busses, on rideshares, on overly-large signs with glowing placards, in radio and television, on streaming providers who raise our rates on what used to be ad-free packages.
Advertising is cancer, and I’m tired of pretending it’s not. Let’s get rid of it.
by Animats on 4/5/25, 7:29 PM
The US used to forbid prescription drug advertising. That seemed to work.
Ads for liquor, marijuana, and gambling are prohibited in many jurisdictions.
The FCC once limited the number of minutes of ads per hour on the public airwaves. That limit was below 10% of air time in the 1960s.
The SEC used to limit ads for financial products to dull "tombstone" ads, which appeared mostly in the Wall Street Journal.
A useful restriction might be to make advertising non tax deductible as a business expense. That encourages putting value into cost of goods sold rather than marketing.
by iambateman on 4/5/25, 6:27 PM
It feels like having a calmer public space is more in the public interest than reminding them to drink Miller Lite.
by gameman144 on 4/5/25, 8:03 PM
Likewise, advertising on its own at its core is useful: there might be something that adds value to your life that someone else is trying to provide and the only missing link is that you don't know about it.
In both cases, it seems totally fine to have strict guardrails about what kinds of practices we deem not okay (e.g. banning advertising to children, or banning physical ads larger than some size or in some locations), but the extreme take of the article felt like it intentionally left no room for nuance.
by hansmayer on 4/6/25, 7:45 AM
by hedayet on 4/5/25, 6:16 PM
It’s easy to dismiss advertising as just a profit engine for ad platforms, but that’s only part of the picture. At its best, advertising plays a meaningful role in solution and product discovery, especially for new or niche offerings that users wouldn’t encounter otherwise. It also promotes fairer market competition by giving smaller players a shot at visibility, and by making alternatives accessible to customers, without relying solely on monopolistic platforms or the randomness of word-of-mouth.
That said, today’s ad ecosystem is far from ideal - often opaque, invasive, and manipulative. Still, the underlying idea of advertising has real value. Fair advertising is a hard problem, and while reform is overdue, banning it outright would likely create even bigger ones.
by rsolva on 4/6/25, 2:28 PM
In Norway, we have a total ban on advertising on certain products, like alcohol and tobacco. We also have strict laws regulating advertising towards children and political messaging on TV and radio.
There is only one problem; these laws where made before the digital age, so they have been sidelined. Political parties buy ads on Facebook and Insta like there is no tomorrow and children are constantly exposed to ads on social media. Only the ban on alcohol and tobacco is somewhat successful.
The right next move would be to ban peronalized ads (ie tracking of personal data). This is the one factor that has made the advertising industry (with Google and Meta at the top) go completely of the rails.
by amarant on 4/5/25, 6:38 PM
The internet would change fundamentally. The article lists social networks as things that would disappear, and good riddance, but we'd also lose (free) search engines.
Further, I'd argue that some forms of advertising are actually desirable. If I'm planning a vacation abroad, and want to make a reservation at a hotel, I'd typically go to booking.com or one of it's competitors. Those sites are pretty much 100% advertising, but how else am I gonna find a hotel on the other side of the planet, in a country I've never been before?
You also run into some tricky hairsplitting questions. Where do you draw the line on advertising? Are webshops allowed to list 3rd party products? Or is that advertising? I don't want to outlaw online shopping entirely, it's extremely handy! What about search engine results from those webshops? Free search engines will disappear, but let's say I have a paid account and search for "buy dell laptop". Are the results advertising? How do you differentiate and define the cases legally?
I think it's a good idea, but it's gonna be quite tricky to implement well. And executing this idea poorly is potentially quite bad.
Getting it implemented at all is going to be hard: even well executed, this idea is going to have a huge impact on the economy, and people are not going to like that. This idea would be good for democracy, but ironically democracy is not good for this idea.
by willsmith72 on 4/5/25, 9:40 PM
> The financial incentives to create addictive digital content would instantly disappear
No they wouldn't.. the business model would change. Facebook sells ads to businesses and entertainment to consumers. People still want to be entertained.
What about the positive effects from advertising? Many products which I never knew existed have gone on to improve my life.
To kill addictive digital content (especially those targeted at young people), just go after them directly. I agree the world will be a better place once we don't spend 10-16 years old online. But the advertising argument doesn't make any sense to me.
by doug-moen on 4/5/25, 7:20 PM
I do remember a major scandal that occurred in the 1980's when somebody posted an advertisement to usenet. At the time, there was a lot of online discussion about why this was prohibited. I looked this up, and found that the internet backbone (the NSFNET) was funded by the NSF, who enforced an acceptable-use policy, prohibiting Backbone use for purposes “not in support of research and education.” [https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/253671.253741]
So yes, it's possible, because we already did it once.
by miki123211 on 4/6/25, 10:28 PM
It subsidizes basically all modern entertainment, from the filmmaking and sports industries (through TV Shows and sports broadcasts, respectively), to musicians and amateur filmmakers (through Spotify and Youtube).
The costs of advertising are ultimately passed down to consumers in the form of higher prices for products and services, not unlike a VAT or sales tax. Because rich people spend more money than the poor (citation needed), they end up paying a lot more of this "tax" while getting the same amount of entertainment for it.
Targeted advertising only exacerbated these dynamics. Because high-spenders are very desirable customers to have, companies can now demand more money for the ability to target them, which turns advertising from a linear to a progressive tax.
Advertising turned the internet into a sort of public commons, with no government intervention and the inevitable inefficiencies and inflexibilities that come with those. It gave us free, high-quality video and voice calls to anywhere across the world, free unlimited texting, including picture messaging and group conversations, free video hosting for everybody, regardless of scale, free music (through Youtube, Spotify and the radio), with at least some compensation to artists, free movies and TV shows (on free-to-air TV as well as through services like Pluto), excellent free educational content (e.g. 3b1b, university lecturers hosted on Youtube at no charge), as well as cheaper entertainment overall through ad-supported tiers.
I think framing things this way is important when discussing advertising regulation. Maybe we want more cheap groceries, don't care about cheaper luxury cars and don't mind less free entertainment, so maybe we should ban grocery ads and encourage more Mercedes ads. Maybe we're fine with less free entertainment if it gets us fewer alcoholics, so we ban ads for alcohol. Those are tradeoffs worth thinking about, perhaps tradeoffs worth making, but they are tradeoffs, and it is important to be conscious of that.
by hvs on 4/6/25, 3:28 PM
by pastor_williams on 4/5/25, 6:28 PM
That said this article glosses over the first amendment which absolutely needs to be considered because (at least in the United States) that is the big barrier to any sort of restriction.
Also the idea of what constitutes an ad. Billboards? What about large signs showing where a store is? Are people with big social media accounts allowed to tell us about their favorite products? Only if they don't get money? What if they get free products? We'll have financial audits I assume to make sure they aren't being sneaky. No more sponsored videos? What about listing the patreons that made the video possible?
How will this be sold to the people that need ads for their small business? We'll need a majority support to pass a constitutional amendment.
Anyway, this seems impossible but good luck!
by lordnacho on 4/6/25, 9:03 AM
Tell me, do you think Roger Federer really appreciates that watch he's selling you? Does he really use that coffee machine that he sells, and thinks it's the best one?
We know what his motivation is, he is not your friend who bought a watch and a coffee machine, used them, and recommended them to you. He gets paid by the producers of the stuff he endorses.
Plainly, advertisers have discovered a loophole in the human psyche, and are exploiting it. We evolved to take in recommendations from people we know, and billboards/TV/etc are close enough to the real thing to trigger _something_ in us that doesn't just work when it's a non-celebrity whose face we don't know. The effect is big enough that celebrities get paid a gigantic amount of money to pretend they are someone you trust and recommend some product they never even thought about until they got given the deal.
I think we should tax that kind of thing. I'm not restricting his free speech. Roger is free to stand in front of the opera in Zürich and tell random strangers that they should buy the coffee machine. But if you put it in mass media, there should be a gigantic tax.
by etempleton on 4/6/25, 2:36 AM
1. You probably only know about half the things you like, enjoy, and use because of advertising. Did you see a trailer for a movie on YouTube you wanted to watch? That is an ad for a movie. Did you get a demo disc for a new band at a party or club in the 90s? That is an ad. Did you see the concert lineup poster? Ad. No one complains when advertising is done well and provides utility.
2. Ads subsidize things you enjoy. Browsers, search engines, television, your tv, most websites, are all subsidized through advertising. You can say would prefer to just pay full price for it and avoid the ads, but most people clearly would not like to when given the option.
3. What even is an ad? What is the line? Are store signs an ad? Are movie trailers? Defining what an ad is and isn’t is messy and a bit silly.
4. The alternative may be worse. What happens when traditional ads stop working? Businesses still need to get their message out, so what do they do? They hire YouTubers to play talk positively about their product, they wine and dine journalists and publications for favorable coverage, which becomes easy because without ads they are hurting for revenue. If ads were banned this would get worse.
It is nice to opine about a utopia without ads, and believe me, I often do, but the reality is advertising has been around for thousands of years and integral to how business and even society works.
by gpsx on 4/6/25, 1:21 AM
by asimpletune on 4/5/25, 7:09 PM
E.g. If a business want to run an ad in the newspaper, go for it. But if they want to follow me around on the internet and collect information on everything that I do, then they should be required to record what they collect. Congress could then vote to make laws introducing taxes on that quantity.
Once this stuff is measured then appropriate counter measures could be taken to discourage socially damaging enterprises.
by nullbio on 4/6/25, 8:39 AM
by wronex on 4/5/25, 6:27 PM
by senderista on 4/5/25, 7:12 PM
Advertising certainly has plenty of negative externalities, but the positive externalities of the free ad-funded services I mentioned are absolutely mind-boggling. Try to imagine living without them (if you couldn't afford to pay for them yourself).
by hatutah on 4/5/25, 6:21 PM
by squarefoot on 4/6/25, 8:40 AM
by harimau777 on 4/6/25, 3:06 PM
Make it illegal to make statements that are not objectively true. E.g. you can't say that your product is "the best", you can only say specifically how it is better.
Put restrictions on advertising an idealized version of a product and then selling a lesser version. E.g. the difference between what fast food ads show versus what you get. I'm sure it would be difficult to completely fix that since it's so subjective, but we could probably get incremental improvements.
by eviks on 4/6/25, 4:56 AM
But humanity has never been free of non-current forms of advertising
> The financial incentives to create addictive digital content would instantly disappear
No the wouldn't, you can still monetize addictive without ads
> Think about what's happened since 2016 ... fracture our social fabric along existing fault lines.
Just think about what happened before 2016 and how many times the social fabric had been fractured (sometimes also with foreign actors) ...
by ChrisMarshallNY on 4/6/25, 10:42 AM
For example, highly relevant PSAs and warnings could be considered “ads.” They can be every bit as obnoxious as “penis pill” ads, but they convey information that may be of life and death importance.
The placards outside professional offices are ads; possibly the oldest form of advertising.
In-store signage are ads, and can cost sellers a lot of money.
You could argue that “shelf-stackers,” and “endcap displays” employed by supermarkets, are a form of advertising.
Sales people rely on personal relationships, and get quite skilled at making every conversation they have, into a sales pitch (which can get annoying).
Promotion is a very complex system, and often goes far beyond simple signage. For many businesses, it’s a matter of life and death.
People that run businesses probably can’t live without them, and are willing to pay a pretty penny for ads.
One thing that might be relevant, are “ad books,” like the old-fashioned Yellow Pages, “pennysaver” papers, or the “brand books,” used by designers. These are ads, but gathered into a place where they are expected, and actively sought out.
In the last century, we often called variants of these, “catalogs.”
by basisword on 4/6/25, 10:26 AM
But there is a certain kind of advertising that is detrimental. My first thought is Amazon 'sponsored' products. Allowing companies to pay money to put inferior products at the top of search results is bad for society. Same goes for Google sponsored search results. Sponsored content in general is terrible. People that have gained your trust selling you things and not actually telling you they are being paid to do so. There are many many digital ads that would not be allowed IRL because they would be stopped for false advertising by regulators.
Like most things in life these days, the problem is not the thing itself. The problem is the Wild West that is the internet where there is minimal regulation allowing people to lie, cheat and get away with it.
by or_am_i on 4/6/25, 7:11 AM
Stay away from the algorithmic feeds, instead get to know your authors and choose them explicitly. Stay away from the personalized ads, pay for content you care about, block what can be blocked, avoid the rest. Learn active banner blindness: catch your attention drifting and look away. Uninstall reels, tiktok, youtube, sanitize your life from short term attention grabbers. Turn off that TV. Mute your car radio. Practice focus: take a book and set a timer. Lock yourself up in a room with a hobby project. Meditate. Set up a ritual with a friend or family, as long as you still got any. Make smalltalk to strangers. Get to know your neighbors. Plan that getaway. Choose your life!
by BLKNSLVR on 4/6/25, 3:19 AM
That would shed some initial societal parasites. See what's left, and then go after the next biggest / grossest topic in the space.
I could get behind that particular brandishing of chainsaw.
by jongjong on 4/5/25, 10:06 PM
Big tech has been mass-spamming us with unsolicited content for decades and driving monopolization, centralizing opportunities towards those who can talk the talk and away from those who can walk the walk. So we've been getting lower value for our money and also losing jobs/opportunities which has made it harder to earn money.
It's crazy that big tech is allowed to spam hundreds of millions of people with unsolicited content but if any individual did it on the same scale, they'd be in jail.
by chasebank on 4/5/25, 6:24 PM
by financetechbro on 4/5/25, 7:28 PM
by markus_zhang on 4/5/25, 9:01 PM
I feel it's impossible to get rid of those Ads platforms such as Google or Microsoft. Businesses need them. If you ask me, I'd say, government should levy a heavy tax on Ads , so basically like gas stations, they are only allowed say 10% of profit margin, and they must cap their ads somehow. Ads is basically a public service, and every public service, if not run by the State, should only allow a very small margin of profit, like public transit and such.
by MoonZ on 4/6/25, 5:18 AM
Big companies where revenues are based on marketing would collapse, the market fragments (which is good), smaller companies are created instead, better diversity of local products and services. Better wealth distribution. More money for the government, hopefully better public services.
With less flashy products and services, people have a better purchasing power, even considering they'll have to pay for services they use, like reviews. Review companies would need strict controls to be put in place against corruption.
It would probably also change a lot of nonsensical landscapes (ex: sports)
Advertising is evil.
by lvass on 4/6/25, 12:53 PM
Also big tech would be incentivized to sell even more user data, as their business would still mostly exist, either via subscriptions, or through the now even more profitable user data market with more expensive targeted shilling.
by defanor on 4/6/25, 10:13 AM
IIRC there is a Dilbert comic strip about that.
> Clickbait [...] would become worthless overnight
Advertisement is not the only incentive. E.g., the Veritasium YouTube channel's host explicitly switched to clickbait, explaining it by his intent to reach a wider audience. Another example is clickbait submission titles on HN, not all of which are for the sake of advertisement (unless you count HN submissions in general as advertisements themselves, of course).
> When I say advertising, I also mean propaganda. Propaganda is advertising for the state
Not necessarily for the state, the usual definition includes furthering of ideas in general. In more oppressive regimes, propaganda of certain ideas is actually banned, as it used to be in even more places ("heresy" and suchlike). Combined with selective enforcement, it is as good as banning all propaganda. It may be a particularly bad example of such a ban, but still an illustration of the dangers around it.
I think a better path towards the world without (or almost without) commercial advertising is not via coercion, but as kaponkotrok mentioned in another comment, via education and public discussion (which may also be called "propaganda"), shifting social norms to make such advertisement less acceptable. People can make advertisements unprofitable if they will choose to: not just by ignoring them (including setting ad blockers), but also by intentionally preferring products not connected to unpleasant and shady tactics, including those beyond advertisement: slave labor and other human rights violations, unsustainable energy sources, global warming, animal cruelty, monopolies, proprietary or bloated software and hardware are some of the common examples. Social norms and such enforcement seem to be less brittle than laws are, and harder to turn into an oppression mechanism.
Although, since I brought up monopolies and other issues, perhaps state agencies may also usefully assist with restriction of advertisement, as they do with those. Social norms and laws are not mutually exclusive, after all.
by djoldman on 4/5/25, 6:40 PM
Some thought experiments:
What do [search engines, social networks, newspapers] look like? I assume they'd all be paid and you'd get some free tastes and then decide which you'd pay for in the long term (à la kagi).
By removing the third party payer, the service provider has no incentive to do anything for them, whether aligned or not with the user. That is the big plus.
What about all the money that companies use to promote their products and services through advertisements and marketing? Some portion of that would probably go to making their products better. The rest... from their standpoint, how do they even get a potential customer to know they exist? That's tough.
by grishka on 4/5/25, 8:14 PM
That said, I don't think it's appropriate to outlaw all advertising. It should still be allowed in places where you'd be open to it anyway: in stores and other places where you spend money anyway, and in specialized publications that exist for people who intentionally want to be advertised to.
However, for when you're buying something, upselling (any questions by the seller that may result in you buying something you didn't intend to buy originally) should be illegal. It feels very insulting to me.
by bee_rider on 4/5/25, 6:35 PM
In terms of “let’s try this surprising new change in the laws,” I’d rather see it become illegal to collect a lot of information about people. Maybe we can consider what Facebook/Google and data brokers do something like stalking.
by freetime2 on 4/5/25, 8:39 PM
The best ads and brands are an iconic part of our culture - something cherished and celebrated by many. I think this is worth keeping in mind at least when talking about banning advertisements.
by siliconc0w on 4/5/25, 8:55 PM
by sebastian_z on 4/6/25, 1:33 PM
While advertising messages may not be themselves particularly important for free speech and can be even detrimental to it, e.g., propaganda, sites themselves disseminate speech and are often third-party ad-financed. What could be a good business model for them (other than direct payments)?
by blobbers on 4/6/25, 10:15 PM
It becomes a question of what truly is an ad?
That said I appreciate this sort of thought; it would even be nice for it to be implemented, but whether it could be enforced is another question. At that point it then becomes a question of who you allow to advertise.
For a long time, hedge funds were not allowed to solicit investments publicly under rule 502c of reg D.
I could see grounds to restrict things further; I’m sick of restless leg syndrome drug treatment ads…
by molybdenum_plus on 4/6/25, 4:52 AM
Of course, a ban on advertising will never happen, because it's very useful to some people. I'm more concerned with the general pattern of thinking that goes:
1. I greatly dislike thing and think thing is bad. 2. Thing should therefore be illegal.
We should be less eager to use the power of law to mold the world to our preferences. It should be a solemn undertaking to use the law! It's an instrument of coercive power and should really be held in reserve as much as possible. Otherwise, we're all just petty tyrants sniping one another for minor transgressions.
There are many things that are very bad that nonetheless must be legal in a free society! I realize this is a uniquely American right, but I nonetheless believe "hate speech" must remain legal. It is bad, yes. I do not like it. I really wish it didn't happen. However, it is markedly less bad than entrusting some byzantine bureaucracy or benevolent dictator to adjudicate the meaning of hate speech. I greatly prefer a world with hate speech to one in which we apply legal authority to eliminate hate speech.
by ddimitrov on 4/6/25, 7:09 AM
I am no longer into hackathons, but I would pay good money for such a product. Bonus points if it is styled like Nada's glasses from They Live.
by bradleyy on 4/5/25, 10:22 PM
```Populists exploit ad marketplaces, using them to bypass traditional media gatekeepers```
I want to believe that the author is hopelessly naive, and not a more nefarious actor. These traditional media gatekeepers are not by any means friendly to democracy; they're literal tools of the state, and actively work against the interests of the populace. I say this without a hint of irony: I trust social media more.
by gcp123 on 4/5/25, 8:10 PM
Modern advertising doesn't just sell products, it sells our own attention back to us at a premium. What started as "connecting products to people who need them" has warped into engineering digital environments that hack our baseline neurological responses.
The most disturbing part is that most people inside the machine know it. I've sat in rooms where we've explicitly designed systems to maximize "time on site" by exploiting cognitive vulnerabilities. The language we use internally is more clinical than predatory, which makes it easy to avoid moral questions.
What's wild is how this piece frames advertising as a relatively recent phenomenon. It's right - for 99% of human history, we made purchasing decisions based on community knowledge and direct information, not carefully engineered psychological triggers that follow us around.
Sure, banning all advertising sounds extreme, but it's worth asking: what would we actually lose? Product information would still exist. Reviews would still exist. Word-of-mouth would still exist. We'd just lose the sophisticated machinery designed to bypass our rational decision-making.
The "free speech" counter-argument has always struck me as disingenuous. Nobody believes they have a constitutional right to interrupt your dinner with a telemarketing call.
by jrwiegand on 4/6/25, 11:57 AM
by phtrivier on 4/6/25, 6:01 PM
In civilized countries, this could be done by taxation (limit the mass) and regulation (limit the excesses.)
Use the country of the advertisment target audience to decide which juridiction applies.
I'm pretty sure advertisers have to be aware of the country their targeting, given that they know me better than my spouse.
by qwertox on 4/5/25, 7:28 PM
* First 3 months 9.99€, 42.99€ per month thereafter, 1 year minimum
by Veserv on 4/5/25, 6:44 PM
One of the key distinguishing factors is that "bad" advertising is intentionally deceptive. The explicit objective is how to overstate colloquially while technically saying something that is not untrue if interpreted by a genie or monkey's paw. Advertisers run war rooms and focus groups to make sure that the message they are promoting is verifiably and scientifically misinterpreted by the target audience while having legal review so that if it comes to court they can say: "Technically, your honor..." we meant something different than what we explicitly and intentionally aimed for.
The standard is backwards. The more money you spend on advertising, the more intentionally truthful it should be. You should run focus groups to verify that the message is not misinterpreted to your benefit the larger the advertising campaign. When you go to court and say: "Technically, your honor..." you should immediately lose (after reaching certain scales of advertising where you can be expected to have the resources to review your statements). Misinterpretation should be a honest surprise occurring despite your best efforts, not because of them and the litmus test should be if your efforts were reasonable at your scale to avoid such defective speech.
The standard is trivially assessable in court: Present the message to the target audience and ask them their interpretation. Compare it to the claims of deception. If the lawyer says: "Technically, your honor..." they lose. However, they can present evidence that they made reasonable efforts to avoid misinterpretation and that the specific form of the misinterpretation is unlikely or unexpected.
The standard is easily achieved by businesses. Make intentionally truthful claims and have your advertising teams check and test for misinterpretation. Err on the side of caution and do not overstate your claims to your benefit and the potential detriment of your customers. If you think "technically speaking", you are on the wrong track. If you would not tell that candidly to your relatives or friends, you should probably stop.
It is not like people do not know they are being deceptive, they just need to be held to it.
by ndr on 4/5/25, 7:56 PM
In most jurisdictions there are, at times weaponized, limitations, and that's the tradeoff those jurisdiction landed on.
I don't see how this proposed limitation could produce acceptable weaponizations.
Just think for a second how outlandish these would sound with such limitation in place:
- The ban on "persuasive content" is used to shut down political dissent labeled as "unwanted influence."
- Independent journalists are silenced when their reporting is categorized as "promotional advertising."
- Fundraising for humanitarian causes is outlawed as "solicitation advertising."
- Religious discussions are prohibited as "advertising spiritual beliefs" or "donation to the organized religion."
- Medical awareness campaigns are shut down as "advertising health concerns."
- Environmental activism is criminalized as "advertising eco-agendas."
There would be just no end of these.
by cafard on 4/7/25, 5:06 PM
by mdnahas on 4/5/25, 11:27 PM
Companies provide what the customer wants. And, as the adage goes, if you’re not paying, you’re not the customer, you’re the product. Advertisement-funded “news” isn’t meant to enrich the reader/viewer — it is meant to attract the reader/viewer.
I think that perverted incentive has always existed with it, but the internet ad technology has really killed the information content. And now we’re have society-scale problems with misinformed citizens.
I don’t think industry will solve the problem. If a company allowed users to opt out and pay, their richest customers would do that and those were the ones most valuable to advertise to. So, offering an opt-out probably loses them money (and increases costs).
I think the news industry should be advertising free. I’d have to think on if it should also have govt funding, but that often gets co-opted.
by danielmarkbruce on 4/5/25, 6:31 PM
by GuB-42 on 4/5/25, 8:06 PM
- Job offers
- Jobseeking
- Dating
- Public service announcements
- Word-of-mouth
- Sponsoring
- Political campaigns
- Fundraisers
- Endorsements
- Recommendations
And many others
If you ban all forms of advertising, society will grind to a halt, even before considering free speech. How can a business be successful if no one knows that it exists? Advertising connects people who need something to people who provide it. It absolutely essential to society and in a sense, it predates humans, if we consider mating as a form of advertising, like peacocks using their tails as some kind of a biological billboard.
I understand what the author means, he is annoyed by ad breaks, banners, and tracking, we all are, and he would like to see less of them, we all do, except whoever makes money over these banners that is.
The author suggests banning paid-for advertisement. But how far will it go? For example, you want to print flyers to promote your business. Is it illegal for the print shop to print your flyers, as they are making money on advertising. Classified ads will become illegal too, forget about craigslist and the likes.
It kinds of remind me of some "abolitionist" laws on prostitution that some countries have. Prostitution is legal, based on the idea that people own their bodies and people have the right to have sex, but everything surrounding prostitution is not, including advertising and pimping. The definition for pimping can go far, for example renting a room to a prostitute can be considered pimping. The idea is essentially to make prostitution illegal without writing it explicitly. A blanket ban on advertising will do that, but for all businesses.
As always, for every complex problem there is a solution which is clear, simple and wrong.
by amrangaye on 4/10/25, 11:17 PM
by xzjis on 4/6/25, 8:47 AM
If any French speakers are interested, I believe it was this YouTube channel (which is very interesting anyway for discussions about fascism, advertising, manipulation, etc.): https://youtube.com/@hacking-social
by willywanker on 4/7/25, 12:10 PM
by dzikimarian on 4/5/25, 11:21 PM
Problem starts, when I'm scrolling $socialWebsite and I see ton of biking ads, because some Orwellian ad network is tracking me through time & space.
Then content starts to serve as means to push ads into my eyes whenever I dare to open them. If content is crap - doesn't matter - if I switch to other source ad will follow.
What's worse - many people were brainwashed into believing that's normal. I remember guy from Chrome team, who published draft for web attestation. He was convinced he's doing good thing because brands have "right" to be sure they're getting real eyeballs and he was just making this process "better" for the users.
by zhyder on 4/6/25, 1:55 AM
It means the expensive product/service gets your attention, coz it can afford a higher bid, instead of the one that's better for you. It also sets a high floor on prices.
To some extent the bidding process was needed when there was inherent scarcity of inventory to place information (e.g. billboards or the 1 local radio station), but there's no scarcity online. Why can't we just have a web where product/service info is listed, and people can seek that info through some search engine?
by account-5 on 4/6/25, 9:26 PM
by x62Bh7948f on 4/6/25, 12:15 AM
by poulsbohemian on 4/7/25, 6:12 PM
by rocqua on 4/6/25, 9:09 AM
Movies set in our world, for example, should be allowed to show real cars, real phones, etc. But that is nigh impossible to prevent from becoming a fight for getting your product placed. And lots of similar places.
It might be possible to outlaw ads targeted more narrowly than a bit of content (i.e. advertisers have to choose, ahead of publication, what content to put their ads next to.) Combining this with banning some of the more direct advertising might work. Though perhaps a world where advertising is purely done through product placement is also horribly distopian.
by jopsen on 4/6/25, 12:15 PM
The we have any robustness towards propaganda/ads is that we're being bombarded with contradicting arguments.
In a society without would be more susceptible to propaganda. Just just we outlaw it, just doesn't stop bad actors.
That there are lots of places we forbid advertising. Bill boards along the road. Content targeted minors.
We are also lots of advertising we could outlaw: regulated medicin, loans, gambling.
We could regulate what ads can say: products must be sold advertised price (fine print not allowed).
Lots of things could we that don't outlaw all advertising. Look around world you'll find many examples such regulations.
by ayaros on 4/6/25, 11:14 AM
by kelnos on 4/5/25, 7:55 PM
Advertising is just psychological manipulation. Any argument that there's "good" advertising that respects the target and is merely informative... well, maybe there is, but it's overshadowed by the other 99.9% of the garbage.
Implementing this feels impossible, though. There would be disagreement as to what constitutes an ad. I disagree with the author that advertising isn't an exercise of free speech; I think that would be a huge roadblock in any country that enshrines free speech rights.
But man, that would be great.
by 0xbadcafebee on 4/6/25, 9:03 PM
by wskish on 4/6/25, 1:27 AM
by reboot81 on 4/6/25, 3:27 AM
by boramalper on 4/6/25, 9:57 AM
by nmstoker on 4/5/25, 9:49 PM
by paxys on 4/5/25, 7:16 PM
The key word here is "current forms of advertising". Advertising as a concept has been around since the invention of commerce and trade, so pretty much since the beginning of human civilization.
So sure, you can have specific issues with browser popups or data collection or billboards or whatever else, but saying "any form of paid and/or third-party advertising" should be illegal is nonsensical. Unless you can make money and trade illegal advertising will continue to exist.
by wanderingbit on 4/6/25, 12:58 AM
by owleyey3o on 4/5/25, 8:44 PM
by globular-toast on 4/6/25, 7:14 AM
I really like the idea. Fuck advertising.
by _diyar on 4/6/25, 8:27 AM
My 2 cents: Ban payed advertising online, including banner ads, search ads, and pre-roll / inter-roll ads (e.g. youtube and instagram).
This is a clearly defined market and probably causes a plurality of the negative impact of adverts (especially when connected with the incentive to algorithmically addict users to show them more ads).
by MilnerRoute on 4/6/25, 2:27 AM
Since its positive impact on society is limited, this would be a way to channel some of that mind-warping wealth into actual civic improvement...
by nilslindemann on 4/5/25, 11:24 PM
by ccppurcell on 4/6/25, 6:34 AM
by andrewstuart on 4/5/25, 6:25 PM
And people who object to advertising live in a world in which their daily lives are provided for by companies that depend on advertising to exist.
As PT Barnum said "Without promotion, something terrible happens... nothing!" and all the companies that make up our economic ecosystem depend on things happening …. sales, which don’t happen without promotion.
Advertising has been around since Ancient Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago and will be around in 5,000 more years.
by dclowd9901 on 4/6/25, 8:54 PM
by samspot on 4/7/25, 4:54 PM
by habosa on 4/6/25, 10:48 PM
I’m very fine with ads on private spaces. In a guitar magazine, a few ads for new music equipment actually makes the product better and is a win for everyone.
I understand that this distinction has a gray area, but we could start with the black and white cases (Vermont has tried)
by luqtas on 4/5/25, 11:29 PM
i would rather live in a world of public transportation, with less children and vegan oriented (climate change == enviroment) without people with guns and only at the hands of an effective police; 100x times than an ad. free world...
wrote this at my Android without a single ad. notification, via Firefox along ublock. been a while i watch an ad.
by sanbor on 4/6/25, 1:38 PM
by Sparkyte on 4/6/25, 6:21 AM
What constitutes advertising vs marketing?
Does product placement count as advertising or marketing?
Does opening up a pop shop count as advertising or marketing?
So much to this, ultimately we do need to regulate advertisements. But I am not sure we can survive without them.
by saul_goodman on 4/7/25, 12:27 AM
Serving size: 1200 words / 60 seconds
Total commercial advertisement content: 600 words
Total US Government sponsored content: 300 words
Total foreign government sponsored content: 100 words
Total NGO sponsored content: 200 words
% of daily content of society shaping propaganda: 30%
% of daily content of subliminal content: 15%
% of daily content of emotional manipulation: %40
% of daily content of Gen5 warfare: 20%
by notnullorvoid on 4/6/25, 3:34 PM
I don't see a problem with criminalizing big ad companies, ad markets, and ad middlemen. I think that would solve a good chunk of the issue.
by JohnDeHope on 4/7/25, 3:09 PM
Harassment is just a mild precursor to outright force. Advertising is just a mild precursor to intellectual force. Advertising is to indoctrination as physical harassment is to physical force.
by Terr_ on 4/5/25, 6:10 PM
There would still be advertising, and maybe even some personalized advertising, but in many cases they might decide the risk isn't worth it.
It would also impact data-brokers and operations that don't strictly rely on direct-to-consumer advertising, like background checks, but credit scores, sales leads, etc.
by spit2wind on 4/6/25, 3:59 AM
I see it as a privacy issue.
by WorldPeas on 4/6/25, 3:13 PM
by voidmain on 4/5/25, 10:57 PM
by magicmicah85 on 4/5/25, 8:37 PM
by Acrobatic_Road on 4/6/25, 12:58 AM
by conqrr on 4/5/25, 6:31 PM
by spaceywilly on 4/5/25, 6:34 PM
Many small companies would go out of business, that’s what. Yes we definitely need advertising reform, but advertising is a very important part of any business if they want to be successful. Making it illegal would cut a lot of businesses off from their potential customers. The author doesn’t seem to propose any alternative solution for this.
by kanodiaashu on 4/6/25, 6:04 AM
by floodfx on 4/5/25, 11:01 PM
by hurtuvac78 on 4/5/25, 8:52 PM
Say we implement this, a natural consequence would be mega-corporations providing every service possible. My Yamaha bike displays a message to promote a Yamaha music keyboard, then expanding to a new Yamaha bookstore or grocery chain.
No money exchanged out of the first-party Yamaha holding.
We would need to improve the proposal to prevent that too.
by mmmu on 4/5/25, 6:20 PM
by 1vuio0pswjnm7 on 4/6/25, 7:01 PM
This sounds like someone who was born intoo an era of internet advertising. As opposed to someone who has been expoosed to adevrtising over many forms of media, the internet being only a recent addition.
The early internet had no advertising. Commercial use of the computer network against the rules.
The web-based companies comprising "Big Tech", while they dominate today's internet by acting as allegedly "necessary" intermediaries and conducting surveillance, appear to have no viable business model to stay "big" in this scenario: where the computer network does not allow advertising, let alone commercial use.
Thus, the question "What if we banned all advertising" sounds extreme, unrealistic, the product of myopia, all-or-nothing thinking. Advertising will always be "legal". But historically man has regulated where it can be disseminated/placed.
A more interesting question might be "What if we had a computer network where advertising was prohibited or limited". About 35 years ago we did. Then the rules against commercial use were removed. Now people are complaining. People who never used the network in the time before advertising was allowed.
Imagine what it would be like to have a computer network without advertising using the computer and networking technology we have today.
Maybe this network could be built on top of the internet, as an overlay.
Make no mistake, there will always be computer internetworks that allow advertising. But the first ones didn't. And there could be ones in the future that don't.
by interludead on 4/6/25, 6:58 AM
by linsomniac on 4/6/25, 3:41 PM
by mathattack on 4/5/25, 6:38 PM
One problem that would come up… It would be very hard to get word out of new (better) products. If you have a great product that doesn’t lend itself to word of mouth, how will anyone know if you can’t advertise?
by mikestaub on 4/6/25, 2:22 PM
by omoikane on 4/5/25, 6:25 PM
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43580586 - 8 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43558438 - 4 comments
by agnishom on 4/5/25, 9:45 PM
by daedrdev on 4/5/25, 6:12 PM
by frogperson on 4/5/25, 6:47 PM
I could see an argument for eliminating targeted advertising. I think everyone gets the same message or none at all.
Being able to precisely target a desired group for a desired outcome seems too powerful and dangerous to exist as it does today.
by blindriver on 4/5/25, 6:15 PM
by diabllicseagull on 4/6/25, 2:39 PM
by MetaWhirledPeas on 4/5/25, 9:32 PM
by VWWHFSfQ on 4/6/25, 4:27 PM
This website is about blocking advertising because they're often predatory and invasive.
> Outlawing advertising would help protect and reinvigorate our minds and democracy.
Practice what you preach. Or don't, if you just want to make a quick-hit blog post.
by floppiplopp on 4/7/25, 7:15 AM
by anovikov on 4/6/25, 4:45 AM
by fsniper on 4/5/25, 9:40 PM
Sure it's a very hard to implement and most probably easy to abuse idea.
However is it impossible? Food for thought.
by admiralrohan on 4/6/25, 8:09 AM
There is already a concept called surrogate advertising. In India, promoting alcohol products is banned, but companies advertise packaged drinking water instead. Everyone knows what it really represents, yet nothing can be done about it.
by tptacek on 4/5/25, 7:55 PM
by holyknight on 4/6/25, 3:29 AM
by 1970-01-01 on 4/5/25, 6:51 PM
Your meal will cost $2.39 less if you watch an advertisement for Irish Spring soap and another for Liberty Mutual insurance. Do you accept these terms?by starfezzy on 4/5/25, 6:56 PM
___
I've felt the same way. Some thoughts I had while reading:
> Propaganda is advertising for the state, and advertising is propaganda for the private. Same thing.
Rare to see someone else recognize this. Not all propaganda is malicious; all systematic spreading of ideas aimed at promoting a cause or influencing opinions is propaganda.
> Think about what's happened since 2016: Populists exploit ad marketplaces
This feels like calling out conservatives. Ironically, it's through relentless propaganda over a century that progressivism has become ascendant. We're reminded 24/7 from every mainstream institution, that what has historically been radically unpopular is ACTUALLY "normal" and "respectable". Indeed, it's only through such incessant propaganda that overwhelmingly unpopular trends have been able to take hold.
> what poisons our democracy is a liberating act in itself. An action against that blurry, “out-of-focus fascism”
What poisons our republic is progressives forgetting that they're ascendant and how they got there.
by disambiguation on 4/6/25, 1:47 AM
* the pervasive tracking of data and serving targeted ads without consent.
* the addictive algorithms engineered to keep users engaged in the feedback loop.
* the machinery being used beyond commercial purposes - influencing opinions, manufacturing consent, and sometimes being hijacked by bad actors.
Not to mention the philosophical and psychological implications. What does democracy mean when elections come down to who spent the most on Ads? What's the merit of capitalism if consumers can be brain washed?
Like most here, I have a vendetta against Ad-tech and go to great lengths to keep ads out of my life (i highly recommend opnSense - Blocking ads across the whole home network is pure bliss).
But should they be illegal?
Questions of what constitutes an ad, how to enforce such a rule, and my personal opinion aside: I don't think its inherently wrong for a company to promote their products. I do, however, believe that all of the above points - data tracking, addictive algorithms, non-commercial ads - are bad and should be illegal. Outlawing all of those practices would do a great deal to restoring balance to advertising and the web.
by simpaticoder on 4/5/25, 11:20 PM
by fennecfoxy on 4/9/25, 2:31 PM
by EGreg on 4/6/25, 4:35 AM
It's the basis for web2 economy just like crypto is the basis for web3 economy, though. So it's hard to make a man admit something when his livelihood depends on it.
by metadope on 4/6/25, 10:01 PM
We are all guilty, making waves, swamping the spectrum with antagonistic signals that often interfere with each other.
We have too many signals in our society. The resulting noise, the cacophony of lies, are echoed and amplified and evolve into perpetual crosstalk and distortion.
Too many signals transmitting too frequently with too much power.
We can't really outlaw advertising.
But we could limit and license spectrum, like we do with radio frequencies. We could legislate the broadcasting and publication of information, based on that extended simile: regulating 'antenna power' and the airwave spectrum... Holding any broadcaster responsible for the public welfare of their listeners.
We share the infosphere. These channels are theoretically owned by us, the aggregate public. Certainly we are all swimming in the same ocean.
We might want to agree on some boundaries, and even licensing, for broadcasters.
by ongytenes on 4/7/25, 9:24 PM
by zzzeek on 4/6/25, 5:44 PM
by klntsky on 4/5/25, 10:48 PM
It's naive to think so. The obvious argument against that is that the behavior of the consumer, not the producer, is what constitutes the problem
by photonthug on 4/6/25, 1:02 PM
Now I'm thinking of the "neighborhood beautification projects" in Abbey's Monkeywrench Gang though where the guys light up the cutting torches to cut down any billboards that get too close to the Grand Canyon. The fear of course is that police might drive by, since if you think about it the activity itself is really reversing vandalism more than anything else. Apparently today you would have to worry about mobs of concerned citizens tearing you to pieces for taking away their right to be advertised to? I'm so amazed by the very idea of this I can't even get that disgusted or angry about it. What else are these people up to, how do they live and what else do they think? Like, if the best food was determined by ad budgets, do they wonder what to have for dinner ever, and what's the most gourmet cuisine in that world? Best candidate for the election is the one with the biggest ad budget? Channel surfing to get away from the annoying so called "content" that prevent you from seeing ads? I feel a bit like I've discovered alien life or something
by greentea23 on 4/5/25, 6:54 PM
by matthewsinclair on 4/6/25, 7:43 AM
Let’s define a “good” as something with positive utility and value, and define a “bad” as something that imposes harm or negative externalities. If we treat advertising as a “bad” — not uniformly, but in terms of impact (manipulation, misinformation, psychological harm) — then we can apply Pigovian logic: tax it to reflect its societal cost. This wouldn’t require a blanket ban, just a rebalancing of incentives. Less intrusive or more transparent ads might be taxed less, while high-volume, misleading, or attention-hijacking ones could face heavier levies.
This shares the spirit of the original argument but trades prohibition for systemic correction — more like how we treat pollution or cigarettes. The advantage is that it avoids the free speech trap, acknowledges that not all advertising is equally harmful, and allows markets to adjust.
You don’t need a moral consensus to act — just an agreement to price the harm.
I have thought a lot about this basic idea of “incentivise goods / tax bads” over the years, and even how to do it a way that is revenue neutral to the government (via “feebates”) and advertising is one of the first places I’d try this.
Likelihood of success in the current climate: zero.
by floriferous on 4/6/25, 4:54 PM
Probably one of the hardest new laws we'll ever have to implement.
by Liftyee on 4/6/25, 6:05 PM
by yegortk on 4/5/25, 6:31 PM
by ryao on 4/5/25, 9:28 PM
by zxcvbnm6789 on 4/5/25, 8:17 PM
“You're Either Growing Or You're Dying.”
Banning or limiting advertising will be hard until that type of thinking changes.
by spoonjim on 4/6/25, 7:10 AM
The customers were happy and I made a profit.
Hard to see advertising as outright bad even though it should probably be more regulated than it is.
by bambax on 4/6/25, 9:28 AM
by rietta on 4/6/25, 2:07 AM
by worik on 4/5/25, 9:06 PM
> I spend my time as a creative marketing strategist and technologist, growing public companies and startups.
Sounds like they may know what they are talking about....
by RandomLensman on 4/6/25, 3:19 PM
by kujaomega on 4/5/25, 7:06 PM
by WalterBright on 4/5/25, 6:21 PM
by mgraczyk on 4/5/25, 8:31 PM
What is the steel man for "advertising bad"? Articles like this always take for granted that advertising is harmful, whereas on the contrary I'm starting from a position where advertising is one of the greatest things that has ever happened, enriching us and making our lives far more vibrant and diverse. PS I have never worked on ads and rarely use them for my products, they are just obviously economically beneficial for everyone.
by scarface_74 on 4/5/25, 10:25 PM
by Simon_O_Rourke on 4/5/25, 8:27 PM
by JKCalhoun on 4/5/25, 6:43 PM
Get it on a ballot measure.
by hollerith on 4/5/25, 7:30 PM
by timtas on 4/12/25, 5:04 AM
by aucisson_masque on 4/6/25, 8:41 AM
20% discount or tv ads are a form of advertising, easy to spot. What about sponsored content ?
It's already trickier to detect, and even then there are sponsored content where someone is paid to showcase, review or straight up lie about a product quality.
If I make a great job with a customer and I tell him, make everyone you know aware how great I am. That's also a form of advertising.
Just being myself is advertising for myself, if I'm good at something, I can take part in a talent tv show and purposely avetise my skills to tv viewer.
by snapplebobapple on 4/6/25, 1:36 AM
by marenkay on 4/8/25, 3:14 AM
you know it's a scam the moment they promise you more than 2% returns.
by hinkley on 4/5/25, 6:12 PM
by andai on 4/6/25, 9:20 AM
Surveillance is much worse, and banning it also solves the worst aspects of advertising.
by oulipo on 4/5/25, 8:45 PM
by justthinkzzz on 4/6/25, 1:53 AM
by codeulike on 4/6/25, 7:33 AM
by bertil on 4/5/25, 7:03 PM
If you give me extra wishes, I’d love three options, to either say that the ad is annoying, the brand isn’t for me, or I don’t want to be offered that type of product.
The quality of ads would skyrocket if I could just stop seeing efforts to get me to be interested in things that I will never buy.
Just before joining Facebook, I was living abroad and confronted to ads in a language I didn’t understand constantly. As my bootcamp task, I measured that this was 4% of ads shown to users. At the time, this was already billions of dollars. My manager deemed that to be a ridiculous and pointless exercise. One night at the bar (there were three bars in the London office at the time), I mentioned it to a guy who happened to be the big ad boss, who immediately prioritized the project, I got a couple of smart guys who joined after I was promoted for finding this.
A bit later, I checked the conversion rate by how many times you’ve seen the same ad before. It was a precipitous cliff: people click on things they’ve never seen before. Ranking ads from the same advertiser happens to be one of those SQL/Hive query that doesn’t scale well, so I had to use the fact I came to the office early and has 12 hours of uninterrupted server time before the daily queries were hammering anything, and I had to sample a lot—but I realized I could sample by server, which helped a lot.
I tried to mention it to the same guy, who said he knew about that problem, but empowering users like I suggested would not work: it would shrink the matching opportunities, AI was getting smarter, etc. In practice, the debate around privacy got very toxic, and Facebook couldn’t let people do that without some drama about storing a list of advertisers that they said they didn’t like.
One of Sandberg’s trusted lieutenants lost a child late in her pregnancy; it was a whole thing. She started seeing ads for baby clothes just after, which triggered an optional ban on alcohol, gambling, and baby stuff. That’s still there. I worked with her briefly a bit later (after months of bereavement) and asked if it made sense to expand the category. She replied that those were two legal obligations, plus her well-known personal drama that no one dared push against, so she was able to push for those three, but that the company had changed. No other categories could be added: at that point, it would be too difficult. Mark used to not care about ads, but he started having expensive ideas, notably AI (to ban horrendous content); he needed the money, and he started to care about raking as much dough in as possible. I had worked on horrendous content (instead of ad language) enough to know that it mattered, so I was very conflicted. It felt surreal how much things had changed in nine months.
All that still feels like a giant waste, not the least how much energy goes into making and showing ads to people repeatedly swearing at their screen, begging to make that annoying copy disappear.
by DudeOpotomus on 4/6/25, 2:49 PM
by titaphraz on 4/5/25, 7:55 PM
A panel of randomly selected 100 people will be the judge and jury.
by poidos on 4/5/25, 6:29 PM
No more billboards, no more ads on TV or radio or podcasts or when you're on a plane or when you're in an Uber and they have that screen. No more ads in something you've already paid for a la newspapers.
You want to advertise to, say, all the people in Arkansas? You have to pay them directly to post your ad on Arkansas USList. Want to target further? Great, you have to pay the county to post on their board. Then, people that want to see your ads can go to their local board, filter by their interests, and maybe see your ad. Want to target all the electricians in a county? Their union runs a board and you can pay them.
Cities/counties/states/${localeType}s could opt to, say, issue an advertising dividend to their residents.
My definition of advertising is the unwanted stealing of your attention by someone who wants you to buy something. Or be aware of something you could buy. It takes you out of a context you have put yourself in, stealing your attention (and therefore your time, which is all we really have in this life).
My stupid USList idea flips this on its head by making it possible to only see ads when you want to.
Movie trailers when you're at the cinema are ads, sure. But they are ads that fit the context you've put yourself in. If you're at the theater, it makes sense for the playbill to list other shows. If you're at a restaurant, the list of specials, or a wine recommended by your server are both appropriate. Even a list of specials or deals in the window of a restaurant, as long as it isn't 100x100ft and illuminaated, is fine by me.
But an LED billboard distracting you with a 2-for-1 meal deal as you drive down the freeway is out of your context (and dangerous! and needlessly polluting!) When we consider the tracking and spying that has become possible thanks to online advertising companies like Google, Facebook, etc... it's scary. And entirely needless.
Like I said, I've been noodling on this for a while and am definitely the crazy anti-advertising guy in my circles. But once I point out the prevalence of ads and how it's like being kicked in the knees all day, I've found people seem to start getting it. I've done more than a few pihole + wireguard installs, UBlock origin + Sponsorblock installs, etc.
Fuck ads.
by swayvil on 4/6/25, 3:45 PM
by daemon_9009 on 4/13/25, 5:55 AM
by chriscappuccio on 4/7/25, 1:01 AM
by sudo_chmod777 on 4/6/25, 8:48 AM
by almosthere on 4/5/25, 9:17 PM
by narcraft on 4/6/25, 9:14 PM
by dribblecup on 4/6/25, 3:43 PM
For instance, for false claims, make it easier to drag a corporation into court and get legal remedies commensurate with the damage or potential damage caused by their dishonesty.
Right now the bias is towards unfettered, dishonest and psychologically manipulative commercial "free speech" with no guardrails the average person can enforce.
So, saying "we think this is the best detergent ever" is fine. It's clearly an opinion. But false or generally misleading claims, especially those that cover-up the potential dangers of the product, could lead to punitive damages sufficient to be a deterrent.
by tintor on 4/6/25, 1:31 AM
by b3ing on 4/6/25, 2:39 PM
by dpc_01234 on 4/5/25, 7:36 PM
by _Algernon_ on 4/5/25, 7:39 PM
by solcloud on 4/5/25, 8:24 PM
by cadamsdotcom on 4/5/25, 10:15 PM
Is it advertising if you say it in conversation? What about on your blog?
by maxclark on 4/5/25, 6:35 PM
by Aerbil313 on 4/6/25, 9:09 AM
If advertising is a zero-sum game between companies competing for your eyeball-minutes, allocating double digits of their income to marketing departments, it’s a net drain on the economy. If it’s a positive-sum game for companies and you are purchasing more goods than you otherwise would because of the ads you see, it means you are purchasing stuff you don’t need, and it means advertising is a way to funnel your money to companies through nonconsensual means, i.e theft. In reality it’s a slightly positive sum game for companies.
Advertising is cancerous in the sense that if there was no advertising, nobody needs to advertise, but if somebody is advertising and you are not, then you’ll lose market share and die, so you advertise too and hence it spreads. It is parasitic in the sense that vast amounts of collective resources of society is spent on this redirecting-money-from-company-A-to-company-B scheme with no positive value generated.
Political advertising undermines democracy. Ads have a huge influence on the outcome of modern elections. You need billionaires backing you to fund your campaign, and guess what? Those billionaires will have some special requests when you take the seat. Fair elections and leaders caring for the people are only possible in a world without political advertising.
All arguments in favor of advertising are circular, they presume the current economy/society where everything is heavily dependent on advertising and then point out “Look, but X wouldn’t work without advertising!” In reality a world without advertising would look much different, and my hunch is it would be wealthier and with less inequality, too.
by fumar on 4/6/25, 4:53 AM
by Lutger on 4/6/25, 12:18 PM
If we - as in humanity - are still there in 500 to 1000 years, advertisement may be taught in a history class as one of the barbaric practices of the 21th century. Maybe some scholars will be able to relate it to world hunger, climate change and genocide with a mathematical precision that we are not yet capable of. That is a timeline I love to think about.
Of course, slaving away in the asteroid mines for Bezos inc., looking at hyper sexualized ads for a trip to Mars is equally likely.
by vladms on 4/5/25, 11:28 PM
Advertising can be useful (to find out about stuff) but very disingenuous (because people can lie). What I would very much like is to be able to assess the trustworthiness and similarity of people advertising me stuff. If someone likes same things as me and I never find him to "lie" (whatever my personal interpretation of that is) I should give him more trust. If someone picks things that I am not interested in and I think he favors stuff (because he is paid, for example) I should give him less trust. Then when I look for a product/video/restaurant I should see things recommended by people I trust more.
I know this kind of happens with "stars", "vloggers" and so on but lacking a system where you track it, means that it is easier to get complex to separate who is just "fun" and you watch but you know he lies and who is also "trustworthy" and you know you can also take his recommendations into account.
But that's just one idea, maybe there are others out there...
by WhyNotHugo on 4/7/25, 11:50 AM
The really tough part is classifying "what counts as an ad". Of course the ones shown by Facebook and Google are ads, but let's look at some not-so-straightforward examples:
1. The community centre in my neighbourhood has a wall with lots of ads from local groups. Language practice groups (which are free), language lessons (paid), narcotics anonymous, painting classes, and a lot of other services provided by individuals or small groups. Some of them non-profit, some of them are the main source of income for those providing the service. I deliberately approached this wall looking for those ads, and we need them for this kind of groups to survive.
2. A supermarket places a large banner near the entrance with this week's offers. The products on offer are expiring soon. There's an interest in selling the goods so they are consumed and don't go bad. The interest isn't only on the supermarket's behalf: as a society, we want to minimise the amount of food that goes to waste.
3. How do we buy and sell houses if there are no ads for "houses on sale". I am aware that there are economic models where individuals don't need to buy and sell houses, but switching to such a model seems way beyond the scope of the proposal. Is an ad stuck to the window still allowed?
4. iOS shows "suggestions" in the order of "sign up for cloud storage to store my data because your phone is full". I consider this an ad. Can we write legislation which would catalogue this as an ad without false positives?
by swisniewski on 4/5/25, 7:03 PM
Digital content is published by placing data on a computer, connecting that computer to the intent, then running software on that computer that allows software on other computers to connect to it and download that content.
Attempting to ban ads is an attempt to censor the content of that communication. It’s analogous to attempting to ban the things people can say over telephone calls. It would be a clear violation of the 1st Amendment.
The Author’s points about “Dopamine Megaphones” and “tracking” don’t hold up.
Posting something online is not the same as yelling through a megaphone. And restrictions on tracking are about behavior, not speech.
One can outlaw both of those things without unreasonably restricting speech.
But banning ads is absolutely unreasonable restraint of free speech rights.
If I speak on the telephone, I am allowed to hand the phone to someone else for a moment and let them speak. Banning such a thing would be unconstitutional.
Many online ads work in the same way.
Similarly, I can take money from someone, and in response speak things they want me to speak. Restraining that is also a violation of free speech rights.
Just because online ads are horrible, doesn’t mean they can be outlawed without trampling on fundamental rights.
by mattlondon on 4/6/25, 8:54 AM
Let's face it, it is incredibly simple to entirely avoid ads everywhere online. Vivaldi or Brave will block all ads (Brave even does it in YouTube) so just install those in 2 taps and you're set.
Many online communities and first party sites are free because they are paid for/motivated by ad income though
Sure there are many sites that don't have ads and are done truly as a passion project by the owner(s) but many rely on the income to pay for bandwidth and hosting etc, or even staff costs. Would Reddit et al exist without any source of income?
People say "I'd pay to use foo without ads!" Yet when those options are available, and when it comes to putting your money where your mouth is, turns out that actually most people don't want to pay to access foo without ads (think YouTube, think Facebook etc that have ad free tiers that hardly anyone pays for). People just block the ads and keep using it for free and so the site gets neither ad revenue nor subscription revenue.
by econ on 4/6/25, 1:15 AM
by dematz on 4/8/25, 1:10 PM
Feels similar to a point in a larger rant about bloated page sizes:
https://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm
"I think we need to ban third-party tracking, and third party ad targeting.
Ads would become dumb again, and be served from the website they appear on.
Accepted practice today is for ad space to be auctioned at page load time. The actual ads (along with all their javascript surveillance infrastructure) are pulled in by the browser after the content elements are in place.
In terms of user experience, this is like a salesman arriving at a party after it has already started, demanding that the music be turned off, and setting up their little Tupperware table stand to harass your guests. It ruins the vibe."
by wruza on 4/5/25, 10:25 PM
So I think more about making internet ads illegal, just to wash out all the spying filth from it. Alphabet, meta, parts of amazon, etc. They are natural cancer and prone to propaganda attacks because it's the same thing.
As per entertainment, people will find the way. Kids these days may not know, but nothing has as much energy as a bored teen/20+ ager. We formed physically local groups based on interests and had life that wasn't 99% passive peering into the screen.
by largbae on 4/6/25, 1:05 AM
by christophilus on 4/6/25, 2:43 PM
by ddmichael on 4/6/25, 12:14 PM
by bigbuppo on 4/7/25, 4:25 AM
by nojs on 4/5/25, 8:10 PM
Or is that just helpfully letting us know of something related that we might want ;)
by dhfbshfbu4u3 on 4/5/25, 6:54 PM
You don’t make a planet of 8 billion people work without the trappings of civilization, good and bad. You certainly don’t make it work without commerce and freedom of speech.
by ksec on 4/5/25, 6:52 PM
>Algorithm-driven platforms like Instagram and TikTok that harvest and monetize attention, destroying youth, would lose their economic foundation.
I guess the author has never been on HN.
This simply assumes Instagram would no longer function because of zero ad placement dollars. I guess the author doesn't know how KOLs works in product launch and promotion.
I get a lot of stick every time I had to say this, but a lot of people in tech, has a very simplistic view that all ads are evil without understanding how ad works in the first place. Especially beyond digital ad. And to make matter worst any discussions about Ad's argument has been downvoted in the past 10-12 years. Some of the questions which toomim purpose would be instantly dropped. I guess the vibe shift is real.
But if there is one type of ad we should ban. It would be political ads. A candidate's legitimacy should not be partly dependent on amount of ad money you throw at it.
by mvdtnz on 4/5/25, 11:06 PM
I am currently selling my house. He's basically saying this would become impossible. This whole post has some real im14andthisisdeep energy.
by tagami on 4/5/25, 7:01 PM
by neom on 4/5/25, 6:43 PM
by mproud on 4/6/25, 1:53 PM
We’d probably have more underground free papers with clever writing, littered with tons ads in them, circulating around in the black market.
But there would likely also be a lot of bad “telephone,” literal word of mouth, but the message might get lost, turning into disinformation.
On the other hand, there could be organized, sanctioned markets where you’re allowed to hock wares and show off product catalogs.
by isaacremuant on 4/6/25, 9:08 AM
Only to authoritarians who think banning things is the solution to everything.
This is the typical "common sense Genius notion" that hasn't been thought out one bit.
This person doesn't care for democracy. They are zealots and ignore the fact that:
- marketing is communication to achieve a goal (reaching a potential customer about the value of a service) and is a legal way for companies to compete. If they can't do marketing legally they'll do it illegally and/or compete with violence. - discoverability is necessary and if you didn't have any means to discover stuff it would be insane or worse, absolutely dictated by this "democracy lover" who wants to have total control for "the greater good".
I don't like ads one bit and absolutely welcome regulation (which is hard because whether you outlaw something or not, the money will be there, see alcohol and prohibition) but this is just so self congratulating and obtuse that it's hard to take it seriously.
All the talk about propaganda or fascism and laughing at the concept of free speech tells me this is yet again, one of these "my blue party lost the elections and I blame propaganda and ads" and that they haven't even given it a second thought beyond "I get clicks" because they don't explain how they propose making sure communication doesn't hide advertising in it. Articles like hers advertise her blog, posting it here is advertising. Making any sort of argument about X being better is an advertisement for X.
It's like people want to play scenarios in their head and refuse to think about economics and game theory because the reality is they want to shape the world politically to their will. Authoritanism hidden with "good feels".
No thank you. You're far more dangerousn than ads.
by unhingedcrouton on 4/6/25, 1:04 AM
It is the root cause of many modern issues and _something_ definitely needs to be done about it. It even erodes capitalism itself by making consumers the product, which has been known for a while but the generalization seems non-obvious - that this happens every time when to the producer-consumer relationship is introduced a third party that changes the financials incentives of producers.
I probably wouldn't go as far as making advertising completely illegal but I'd like to see it regulated and probably limited to spaces specifically made to be "advertising hubs" both online and in the physical world.
by dave333 on 4/5/25, 9:55 PM
by rusk on 4/6/25, 9:04 AM
Do we need a way to connect suppliers with consumers? Yes. Do we need an intermediary that acts in bad faith? No we do not.
I would propose the crazy idea that such intermediaries should be at least equally responsible to the consumers as the suppliers.
That would be helpful.
by movpasd on 4/6/25, 11:07 AM
The interesting question is whether we're happy with where the dial is right now, which direction we want to push it, and how fast --- and the underlying meaning of the article is that maybe we should be pushing it in the regulatory direction very fast indeed.
by jdjdjdjdjd on 4/5/25, 11:17 PM
by fennecfoxy on 4/9/25, 2:27 PM
So many apps I use are supported by 30-60s ads for some stupid fucking mobile game that I immediately know I don't want to install, I have no intention to interact with the ad and yet I'm forced to sit through it for 30s, only to hit the X on it and have it open the Play Store anyway?!?!
And video ads in general, if I know that I'm not interested right away, why am I forced to sit through 30-60s of it?
I mean I can look away from a fucking billboard...but this stuff. A great first step would be to make ads that forcibly hold attention like that illegal.
by troyvit on 4/5/25, 10:44 PM
> Bullshit. No one is entitled to yell at you "GET 20% OFF THIS UNDERWEAR YOU GLANCED AT YESTERDAY" with a dopamine megaphone in your bedroom. And to track 90% of your life to know when and how to say it. That's not free speech, that's harassment.
The same argument could be applied to the homeless people I see on most corners these days with cardboard signs designed to pull my heart strings. It's a different brain chemical, but it's actually real and it affects my re-uptake inhibitors a lot more. Should we ban them? Or just their signs?
Here are a few of the many defenses against advertising that are all free:
- Ad blockers for browsers
- Kill your television
- Listen to and support public media (unless those sponsorship messages count as ads which is a valid argument)
If literally everybody applied just those three things, advertising would die a natural death without having to ban anything.
<rant>
I'm a bit of a free speech zealot, and so I'll pull the slippery slope fallacy and just ask: after ads, what do we ban next? Sponsorship messages like public radio uses? Product placement in movies? Would we be allowed to have _any_ real products in movies or would everybody drink Slurm instead of Coke and drive around in Edisons instead of Teslas? Are movie previews allowed? What about product reviews where the product is given to the reviewer for free? What about Simone's presence on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert years ago? That was entertainment, but it also clearly advertised her YouTube channel. Is that allowed?
</rant>
We humans are one of the few animals that have within us multiple ways to kill ourselves. While that's mostly thanks to our awesome thumbs, our speech is another powerful tool. We're also one of the few animals that can, with much work, transcend our weaknesses and be more than the goop that makes us up. Finding out whether we do is the whole reason I'm sticking around.
by jang07 on 4/6/25, 11:15 AM
by fixprix on 4/5/25, 6:24 PM
Capitalism depends on advertising to let people know of the product or service that is more cost effective than existing solutions. The advertising budget is dependent on knowing your product is actually good enough to justify the expense. Without advertising, competition itself doesn't work.
by martin-t on 4/5/25, 8:51 PM
- the difference between zero-sum and positive-sum games
- that large parts of society are engaged in zero- (or even negative-) sum games 1) some through choice or 2) because they are forced to, to be able to compete with group 1)
Advertising, manipulation, misinformation, disinformation, and lying are all related phenomena with negative effects on both individuals and society.
Just like Wales is the first place to propose punishing lying, at least from some positions of power, I am looking forward to whatever country becoming the first to make advertising illegal, at least in some forms and scales.
by rvba on 4/6/25, 8:54 AM
by mlboss on 4/6/25, 1:08 AM
Thinking from a small business perspective, advertising is the only way to find consumers if you are just getting started.
Business stop advertising. Sales drop. People lose job.
by neric on 4/6/25, 11:20 AM
by fmxsh on 4/6/25, 4:30 AM
(edit: I have actually been thinking in similar terms as the article, but I do think the article is optimistic and utopian, as if a good intuition would be enough to prevent the very same forces from exploring the reform
Filtering visitors by fingerprint of the browser (cloud flare and palemoon) won't stop bots, but creates a market for more sophisticated bots)
by chbkall on 4/6/25, 6:54 AM
With so much fake news and data, a lot of content has started to seem like white noise. Maybe this is a direction worth exploring for us as a society.
by sneak on 4/5/25, 8:52 PM
I’m as anti-advertising as they come and this is too far. There needs to be a more reasoned approach. Banning tv ads, or billboards, or online advertising, or certain practices - fine. A blanket ad ban would do far more harm than good.
by BirAdam on 4/6/25, 3:36 AM
by refulgentis on 4/5/25, 6:20 PM
Banning ads altogether wouldn't automatically eliminate incentives for manipulative or addictive content—platforms would quickly shift toward subscriptions, paywalls, or other revenue streams. While this shift might alter harmful dynamics somewhat, it wouldn't necessarily remove them altogether. For instance, subscription models have their own perverse incentives and potential inequalities.
Moreover, completely removing ads would disproportionately hurt small businesses, non-profits, and public service campaigns that rely on legitimate, non-invasive ads to reach their audiences effectively.
Instead of outright banning ads—an overly blunt measure—we'd likely achieve far better outcomes through thoughtful regulation targeting the actual harmful practices: invasive tracking, dark patterns, algorithmic manipulation, and lack of transparency. A better approach would aim at reforming advertising at its source, protecting individual privacy and autonomy without crippling a large segment of legitimate communication.
by johndhi on 4/5/25, 8:17 PM
by lunarlull on 4/6/25, 3:53 AM
by dd_xplore on 4/5/25, 9:58 PM
by cratermoon on 4/6/25, 1:22 PM
by hypertexthero on 4/5/25, 9:16 PM
https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2025/04/05/The-CoSoc...
by throw5425 on 4/5/25, 10:23 PM
I've been on the internet for over 25 years and there wasn't a time in which ads were more than a mild annoyance. Sure, a 5-second ad before watching a video, or a porn ad in The Pirate Bay, or an ad in a news site - I could do without them. But it's a nothingburger, and I'm grateful for those ads, as many of the sites I use would not exist without them. For anyone who's really bothered by them, there are ad blockers.
Furthermore, user data and tracking is a huge bogeyman, and it's extremely overblown. I'm yet to see any evidence of anyone having any relevant data about me AT ALL. With any luck they can profile me in that I use certain sites, or that I'm a male in my 30s and I live in X country. Generic shit at best. Relevant read: https://archive.is/kTkom
If anything, so-called targeted ads have been failing on me because I'm never suggested producs or services I'd actually buy.
So, what's the issue here? For all the issues we currently have, ADS are the worse? No.
What I think is:
a) This is an elitist in-group "luxury belief". It's like saying I hate ads signals a sort of superiority, as if you're part of people in the know, and ads are for normies or NPCs. That's for inferior people, I'm above that.
b) This is a problem for people in the autist spectrum, in which those who say they hate ads are overrepresented.
But I think there's a darker undercurrent since this view has been lobbyied and astroturfed to oblivion:
c) This is a propaganda effort to distract you from more nefarious things, or to encourage them. Such as normalizing banning and prohibiting things. Normalizing strict state-enforced regulation of the internet.
by moktonar on 4/6/25, 7:56 AM
by cluckindan on 4/6/25, 10:51 AM
by AlienRobot on 4/6/25, 1:49 PM
And you hate paywalls
And you don't subscribe to newsletters
And you don't buy merch
And you don't donate $5 to Wikipedia
And you haven't bought Winrar
And you think copyright should be illegal
But maybe you should consider the second order effects
by otterley on 4/5/25, 6:19 PM
The author is off their chair. Yes, even commercial speech is protected as long as it’s not fraudulent. And there are already laws prohibiting nuisances. Advertising isn’t a nuisance in any legal sense; it just comes along with the ride when you willingly consume sponsored media.
Listen to and watch only public media, and stop going to sponsored websites and using social media if you want to avoid advertising. It isn’t the most convenient thing, but it’s not impossible.
If you disagree with this comment, please respond instead of downvoting. Don’t be a coward.
by jimmydoe on 4/6/25, 4:24 PM
by tossandthrow on 4/5/25, 6:10 PM
by zombiwoof on 4/5/25, 8:01 PM
https://genius.com/Minutemen-shit-from-an-old-notebook-lyric...
by giorgioz on 4/6/25, 8:49 AM
by nottorp on 4/6/25, 9:53 AM
The spyware and bunch of blatant lies part?
Or the new product discovery part?
Is everyone forgetting there's a middle ground?
by UncleEntity on 4/5/25, 6:22 PM
First, it is 100% free speech.
Second, the government isn't allowed to make laws prohibiting the exercise of free speech based on the content of said speech. Nor can it take actions which are arbitrary or capricious.
Third, restrictions on free speech MUST fulfill some overriding public good like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater or words meant to incite violence. Slander, libel, &etc.
Fourth, why is it even necessary to explain this?
by ddxv on 4/5/25, 9:46 PM
by seer on 4/6/25, 11:23 AM
Particularly good advertisement in society is a cultural trait that makes it consume way more than it needs, driving individuals into debt, but that means way more business activity to capture that and then redirect all that human effort into actual power.
Butan has no advertisements and people consider themselves quite happy, but the second China or India decide they want something from it, there is nothing it can actually do.
Kinda like in the novel “the dispossessed” from Le Guin - the anarchist planet ultimately lives at the mercy of the capitalist one, and if policy changes (for example - Trump) then you are … no more.
So while I agree that ads are an unnecessary tax that should be banned, I can imagine a society that does could end up at the mercy of a society that doesn’t, given a generation or two.
by an_aparallel on 4/5/25, 9:39 PM
In Australia, liquor ads were banned on sports jerseys and stadiums, tv (i think) and so on. But now we have this ridiculous Orwellian environment where literally every jersey is plastered with an online betting platform, online and tv advertising for these same (addictive) platforms. Each ad is suffixed with a tiny disclaimer that "gambling destroys lives/gamble responsibly". Fucking please....
I used to work in advertising. One thing is clear, the biggest advertisers have insane amounts of money to throw around. It doesnt have to be effective, all it has to do is repeat itself, everywhere at all times.
Advertising is very closely linked to oversupply of products we dont need. Governments are to be very clear not in existence to safeguard the public from anything. If they were, the law would penalise large producers for planned obscelesence, poor quality products designed to break, which in turn requires incessant advertising to keep the machine moving.
by amai on 4/8/25, 5:59 PM
Welcome to reality....
by piuantiderp on 4/6/25, 4:43 PM
by Eavolution on 4/5/25, 6:21 PM
What I absolutely have issues with is targeted advertising, having to modify content to make it advertiser friendly (i.e. reasonable people on YouTube having to avoid swearing/use infuriating euphemisms for self harm or suicide etc in case it makes the video not advertiser friendly), and the frankly offensive and unjustifiable amount of tracking that goes along with it.
I wish we could ban dynamic advertising (can't think of a better term, as in targeted, tailored advertising that is aware of what it's being advertised against) and just allow static advertising.
I also wish it could be codified in law that what is shown to me on my computer is entirely up to me, and if I want to block advertising on my computer, that is my choice, in the same way I can make a cup of tea during the ad breaks in tv, and skip over the advert pages on the paper.
by noqc on 4/6/25, 4:48 AM
by knowknow on 4/5/25, 6:22 PM
...
> But humanity had been free of current forms of advertising for 99.9% of its existence. Word-of-mouth and community networks worked just fine. First-party websites and online communities would now improve on that.
Humanity had hatred and insular bubbles a millennia ago just fine without advertisements. There was genocides and wars before the current form of ads ever emerged. It's a shame that so many people think that changing a financial policy is all that is needed to change an ingrained human behavior.
by termau on 4/6/25, 3:50 AM
by trod1234 on 4/5/25, 7:15 PM
Why this is happening is beyond simple if you follow the money. Compare the Ad industry today compared to the 90s, how is the ad industry able to outcompete every advertising venue thereafter? Its clear in hindsight that there were companies that had constraints, and there were companies that didn't, and this wasn't a matter of competition either.
The main difference if you dig into the details is you will find that the money being pumped into advertising seemingly endlessly without constraint comes from surveillance capitalism, in other words the money is subsidized by the government and the US taxpayer, through a complicated money laundering scheme. What was once called advertising in the 90s isn't what we have today. This shouldn't be possible, except in cases of money printing, and they all end badly for the survivors.
Banks engage in money printing through debt issuance to collect 3 times on the amount loaned. They loan out money they don't have, the principle of which must be repaid. They get paid a required interest on that amount which includes the interest double dipping and compounding. Finally the balance sheet gets into arrears so far to the point where they require a bailout usually once every 8-10 years. A bailout is required to balance the ledgers before default and its paid by debasement of the currency, without it you get a Great Depression where the credit providing facilities have all been burned to the ground like what Pres Coolidge did through inaction and lack of regulation.
Legitimate market entities are producers that are bound by a loss function relative to their revenue. State-run apparatus have suckled up for their share to a money printer entity, growing like a cancer since the 70s, and will continue to do so long as the slaves feeding it can continue, and that is based upon producers capable of producing at a profit (self-referentially).
Legitimate producers cease operation and accept a buyout or close down when they can no longer make a profit. This naturally occurs when the currency ceases having a stable store of value as a monetary property. The money printer apparatus are not exempt from this requirement either, and you have growing corruption and sustaining shortage when purchasing power fails, which collapse to deflationary pressure.
The slaves in this case are anyone that transacts in the medium of exchange/currency. History covers this quite extensively as it happens in runaway fiat every single time given a sufficient time horizon.
When do producers have to cut their losses and cease production? With the currency, the point where money cannot ever be paid back is that point. The same as any stage 3 ponzi, where outflows exceed inflows.
If the GDP > debt growth, smart business will cease public exchange and operations. All other business will be bled dry by the money printers. You get collapse to non-market socialism, which has stochastic dynamics of chaos as an unsolveable hysteresis problem based on lagging indicators. The results of which include sustaining shortage (artificial supply constraint), to deflation, famine, death, and socio-economic collapse. Workers that are not compensated appropriately (and they can't be) will simply stop working. Letting it all rot.
The time value of labor going to zero also causes these same things. That is what AI does.
Without exception, every slave eventually revolts, or ends their and/or their children's existence as a mercy against suffering in the grand scheme.
What makes anyone think AI accidentally achieving sentience won't do something like that when biological systems in the wild favor this over alternative outcomes, in this thing we call history ?
by simne on 4/6/25, 11:47 AM
This was extremely ineffective society - because in such system people don't have any real motivation to grow and to become better.
And this leads to society of fools - when in 1990s borders opened, many scammers from all the world, made fortunes on fooling people, who just used to sterile environment without even weak manipulation, so totally defenseless for really serious scam.
Unfortunately such environment now, after 30 post-soviet years have extremely problems with economy.
Imagine, we in Ukraine have thousands engineers unemployed, or working for less than general laborer.
You may wonder, how this could happen. Answer - information inequality - engineer or any other professional know at least few times more than ordinary people (or from other specialty).
Why information inequality is so important - because even in USSR, where govt tried to make totally controlled "planning" economy, have about million products on market, so to optimize production need to solve system of equations 1Mx1M size, which is even now semi-possible.
In free market environment, complex of mechanisms "invisible hand of market", advertisement+entrepreneurs as intermediators+mechanisms of reputation, making market semi-optimal, so in real world have about 30% resources spend ineffective.
But when soviet govt claimed to make 100% effectiveness, in reality, was about 300% ineffective spending, and that's why USSR fail - just because was ineffective. This have many causes - first I already said - people was not motivated to grow anything; from lack of motivation appeared technical weakness - unmotivated people don't invent new things and not eager to adopt abroad technologies (because this also need lot of hard work); tech weakness leads to lack of modern computing infrastructure, so when USSR government dreamed about modern computers, could have only outdated hardware, steal from West (or got via grey-black schemes which is just other name of steal).
And after USSR fail, several directors of huge soviet enterprises, used scam schemes to become private owners of these enterprises, and now they brake reforms, to save their fortunes and power. And for small business need more than 10 years to gather so much resources and reputation, to become enough powerful to run reforms. So many exUSSR countries stuck in between totalitarian and democracy (in reality I see slow motion, but seen next fact in many cases impossible to say, if it is positive or negative, or just nothing significant), and nobody could predict, how many years will spent in this extremely slow motion (or I prefer to name it hang in the air).
So, if we made advertising illegal, huge enterprises will got huge advantage over small business, and will disappear concurrency, so richest people will become rich forever and poorest people will become poor forever.
And must admit, I sometimes don't like advertisement, but it is required by market, so we need to invent some other measures to make advertisement more ethical.
by fdb345 on 4/6/25, 7:38 PM
by 725686 on 4/5/25, 11:00 PM
by otabdeveloper4 on 4/5/25, 6:17 PM
Good luck.
by kaponkotrok on 4/5/25, 6:34 PM
by bofadeez on 4/5/25, 6:17 PM
Our right to free speech is not granted by anyone's consent or by government decree. It preexists the state and cannot be taken away.
We hold this truth to be self-evident. We are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights.
If any government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.
by 627467 on 4/6/25, 3:02 AM