Imagine an empty cafeteria. You and your friend enter, get your meal, sit down, and enjoy quiet conversation. Then two other people do the same thing and, because your voices reverberate in the room, you and your friend begin to talk a little louder. As more people enter, the ambient volume increases until no one can hear themself think, never mind hear the person across the table from them.
That is how advertising seems to me. If only one person hired false witnesses, their hires might rightly be consigned to the eighth circle of Hell where they belong. But because everyone hires false witnesses, it's become an operating expense necessary to overcome the ambient lying.
I LOVE this idea and advocate for it in private convos all the time. Banning ads and enabling (micro-)payments for accessing content that is currently ad-supported would be an unimaginable game-changer.
I think one way to look at this is that--why are Meta and Google so successful? Because they are basically an index fund on the world economy right. If you want to sell soup in Jakarta you advertise on Instagram. If you want to sell paint in France you advertise on Youtube. If you want to sell T-Shirts in Boston you advertise on Facebook
So then the flipside is that without ads these sellers now have to complete head on with giant companies who have all the brand recognition. Now you need to somehow make your Etsy store viral instead of just putting it in Facebook ads
I despise advertising, but anecdotally, I can think of three ads in the past week that informed me about products I didn’t know existed but would enjoy. I also learned about multiple new games releasing, sporting events that were happening, etc. The claim that ads are not at all informative is incorrect.
That being said, I also block as many ads as possible from my life, so the few I actively notice tend to be more noticeable.
I used to know one of the great ad execs from Mama Bell and he told me nothing happens in this world until a person decides to trade a dollar for something.
How do they decide such things? How do people become aware of what things are available for purchase?
Another thing he said was that they knew half of their ad spend was "wasted" on people who would never buy what you have to sell.
The feeling I get from the author is that targeted advertising is the problem, which also has a 50%+ waste factor (due in large part to fraud). I suspect it is unlikely all the complexities of contemporary marketing and advertising are worth it.
Also worth considering to what extent the author's website is a form of advertisement itself.
> feeling I get from the author is that targeted advertising is the problem
Non-targeted advertising is also a blight. If you've never visited a place where billboards are illegal, it may be hard to imagine what a relief it is to be free of them.
Maybe it's not possible (tried and failed or just technical fantasy), but if the ad market could be inverted where I could manage what I am and am not interested in, as well as sell feedback on the ad (couldn't understand the value prop, thought it was dumb, loved it, etc) where the end user is not the product but a partner in that marketplace.
I've not thought it through deeply, but the notion intrigued me.
That ad exec certainly had a myopic point of view. Just like the old saying, "If you wear shoes, the world is covered with leather."
For sure, our economy depends on buying and selling, and buying and selling depends on advertising. Like other things that can be abused, advertising needs regulation.
But to say that "nothing" happens without money changing hands ignores a vast swath of the human experience. I pity the person who thinks that everything has a price in dollars and cents.
I believe the comment about trading a dollar is more a comment on money being the medium of exchange. Humanity had a history without money, and while some bartering still exists, by and large we live in a society where money is how we trade in situations where you have something I want, but I lack something you want.
Flip side of it is - I love not seeing advertisements, of any type.
Sponsorblock and uBlock Origin makes YouTube a whole different experience. Locally backed-up or on-demand TV shows are so much more bingeable than the ones on DVR. I love watching livestreams and not being pulled aside for a 30 second sponsored interruption. It makes me giddy with excitement paying for software and media that does not have any advertisement in it whatsoever.
The big picture is great and all, but watching something like the Super Bowl you get a sense of how wasteful all that marketing is. If half those companies reinvested their ad budget into their product, they'd be more likely to earn my money than if they jumped over a dolphin with a jet ski to promote H&R Block or Polymarket.
Marketing has always been one big, slippery slope of transgression that could always benefit from a reset.
I wholeheartedly agree and put effort into not seeing ads as well. At the same time, there are companies I like doing business with that I would never have known about were it not for their advertising, marketing, and/or sponsorships.
If only there were some institution full of independently minded individuals who could tell us, plainly and evenhandedly, without undue influence, about products we might be interested in.
That is how advertising seems to me. If only one person hired false witnesses, their hires might rightly be consigned to the eighth circle of Hell where they belong. But because everyone hires false witnesses, it's become an operating expense necessary to overcome the ambient lying.
Local jurisdictions have restricted or even forbidden outdoor advertising since it was invented.
Sao Paulo: A city with no outdoor advertisements (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36586632 - July 2023 (413 comments)
São Paulo’s Outdoor Advertising Ban (2016) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20725409 - Aug 2019 (95 comments)
So then the flipside is that without ads these sellers now have to complete head on with giant companies who have all the brand recognition. Now you need to somehow make your Etsy store viral instead of just putting it in Facebook ads
I would say the exception would be one must speak with 100% certainty. No 'virtually no side effects' and none of this 'best burger in 200 miles'.
That being said, I also block as many ads as possible from my life, so the few I actively notice tend to be more noticeable.
How do they decide such things? How do people become aware of what things are available for purchase?
Another thing he said was that they knew half of their ad spend was "wasted" on people who would never buy what you have to sell.
The feeling I get from the author is that targeted advertising is the problem, which also has a 50%+ waste factor (due in large part to fraud). I suspect it is unlikely all the complexities of contemporary marketing and advertising are worth it.
Also worth considering to what extent the author's website is a form of advertisement itself.
Hope I could give insight into a largely ad free life
Non-targeted advertising is also a blight. If you've never visited a place where billboards are illegal, it may be hard to imagine what a relief it is to be free of them.
I've not thought it through deeply, but the notion intrigued me.
For sure, our economy depends on buying and selling, and buying and selling depends on advertising. Like other things that can be abused, advertising needs regulation.
But to say that "nothing" happens without money changing hands ignores a vast swath of the human experience. I pity the person who thinks that everything has a price in dollars and cents.
Sponsorblock and uBlock Origin makes YouTube a whole different experience. Locally backed-up or on-demand TV shows are so much more bingeable than the ones on DVR. I love watching livestreams and not being pulled aside for a 30 second sponsored interruption. It makes me giddy with excitement paying for software and media that does not have any advertisement in it whatsoever.
The big picture is great and all, but watching something like the Super Bowl you get a sense of how wasteful all that marketing is. If half those companies reinvested their ad budget into their product, they'd be more likely to earn my money than if they jumped over a dolphin with a jet ski to promote H&R Block or Polymarket.
Marketing has always been one big, slippery slope of transgression that could always benefit from a reset.