What if we banned all advertising? Not regulate it—abolish it. This proposal would transform manipulation machines, and maybe save democracy itself. A thought experiment worth considering.

The idea feels like sci-fi because you’re so used to it, imagining ads gone feels like asking to outlaw gravity. 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.

The traditional argument pro-advertising—that it provides consumers with necessary information—hasn’t been valid for decades.

  • @[email protected]English
    1•13 days ago

    Full stop.

    This is where I stopped reading the article. It’s such a red-flag.

    What I was thinking up to that point, though, was

    • some ads do inform about new products (Swiffer) at launch
    • some ads actually demonstrate proper use of a product. None come to mind in the moment. But I have distinct memories of saying to myself, “oh! That’s how that works!”
    • ad breaks educate when a broadcaster is forced to include them. How would I know about the brown bear, the ptarmigan or the crack spider without Hinterland Who’s Who? Body Break? “I’m just a bill, on Capitol Hill,” anyone?

    I’m sure we could brainstorm one or two more thin positives that ads provide, but those are weak enough already. Just, non-zero.

    • 74 183.84English
      2•12 days ago

      Ngl, this is a weak ass argument. Nearly all ads are trash and just get ignored. The ad industry has caused more problems than anything specifically/especially with privacy. There is some validity to ads in the sense that it does make it easier to find new products. I would be fine with ads (to a reasonable extent) in stores to show new products they carry. But the “good” ads (one that actually provide any kind of useful information) are way overshadowed by the bad ads. Its just time to cut the balls of this monster. Im sick of AI generated ads especially. I see them on youtube a lot as youtube will let just about anybody or anything to drop an ad on their website.