Mildly Interesting

20064 readers

1096 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

1421

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

[–] LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Thanks, those statistics are definitely more extreme than I imagined. I still would imagine that smartphone or TV you'd get more "new product review" shows because there is a demand and it's (somtimes) cheap content to make.

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

I’d certainly love a good show like that. We used to have a lot of those back in the 80’s and 90’s. They’d test all sorts of gadgets and gizmos that weren’t available yet to consumers in Europe, much less your actual city. You’d see them test the latest camera that might be available ‘summer next year’ or something to that effect.

It drove stores up the wall back then, trying to keep up with stuff people saw on TV that simply wasn’t and wouldn’t be available there.