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What If We Made Advertising Illegal? (simone.org)

submitted 1 year ago by sundrei@lemmy.sdf.org to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world

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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.

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[–] Tehdastehdas@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There used to be a business catalog book called "yellow pages". Now there are map applications, price comparison sites, customer review sites, and keyword search engines. All of those make advertisements unnecessary.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's advertising. The entire phone book was a sold adventure. Jail, prison, what is the punishment for advertising. I think people have forgotten what advertising is. I ask you you favorite movie, you answer, advertising. If you tell me Lemmy is a decent place, advertising. Any app, game, movie, music, software, hardware, car, plant, advertising. Stop talking about any object if you want ALL advertising to be illegal as the description says

[–] mere@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

bear in mind that the linked article expands and clarifies that it doesn't mean banning all ads, it's is talking about banning specifically paid ads (i.e. the advertised thing is spending money to be shown) and/or third-party ads (i.e. the advertised thing being shown in places that don't already refer to them). So word of mouth is fine, a business catalog book is fine, all comparison/customer review/keyword search sites are fine, etc. The one thing I can think about is the smaller companies and businesses finding it much harder to gain traction, but word of mouth would replace advertisements and word of mouth is already quite effective - see the very site we're talking on right now!

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 days ago

Curious how you landed in the past, haha. I saw your response and couldn't remember what it was about. Yeah it was mostly a dumb comment I probably made while drunk.