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

submitted 2 weeks 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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[–] jeena@piefed.jeena.net 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I have nothing against pull advertising so that if I need something I go somewhere and pull some advertisement to get information about a product I need or want. Window shopping, going to church seem like that.

But shoving ads down my throat, no thanks.

[–] whereisk@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

My point is that the premise of the article is untrue - harking to a past that never was.

Don’t church bells shove advertising down your ears? How about if I open a competing church with louder bells? What if I open a donut shop and I ring bells to notify you that a fresh batch is ready?

“No more bells then”, cool.

How about mosques? No bells, just a guy screaming from a tall balcony. And another and another.

Even in communist Russia you had propaganda ads everywhere.

There are plenty of ways currently of blocking most ads out of online media anyway - though underhanded means like product placement etc still sip through.