Mildly Interesting

20028 readers

1311 users here now

This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.

This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?

Just post some stuff and don't spam.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

marcar@lemmy.world

Jimbabwe@lemmy.ml

WhatsHerBucket@lemmy.world

1419

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

submitted 2 weeks ago by sundrei@lemmy.sdf.org to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world

390 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] MellowYellow13@lemmy.world -4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

By growing.

[–] blackn1ght@feddit.uk 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

How do they grow if they can't tell anyone about their products or services?

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

My local bakery doesn't have that issue

They just make great bread so people go there by the hundreds

Open source software doesn't have that problem, I found everything I love

Once I need a product I can go to a forum or chat group and find reviews

[–] blackn1ght@feddit.uk 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Your local bakery can rely on local customers who likely walk right by it. They produce inexpensive products that are relatively easy and quick to produce.

Not every business is like that. Maybe they spent a lot of money upfront on research and development and need to shift x units by a certain time to make it work financially? How could they do that if they have no physical presence on the high street and without telling people at scale that they exist?

Open source software is generally free, written by volunteers. There isn't the financial pressure to sell and recover costs by a certain time.

[–] DisguisedJoker@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

Perhaps there is a difference in listing a service in some sort of index, like the phone book, versus techniques intended to develop a need (or want) where there wasn't one otherwise, like an iPod commercial.

[–] MellowYellow13@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

By telling them, who said you cant? Communication and advertisement are two different things.

Its crazy that by no advertisement you immediately jumped to you cant tell anyone about anything

[–] blackn1ght@feddit.uk 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

By telling them, who said you cant?

By telling who? And How?

[–] MellowYellow13@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Communication isnt advertisement. Depends on the type of business dude. Theres a thing called word of mouth.

[–] blackn1ght@feddit.uk 1 points 2 weeks ago

And how do you do that en-masse? How do you spread the word to people by word of mouth who haven't heard of your product/service?