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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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[–] opsecisbasedonwhat@lemmy.ca 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It's necessary for monopoly capitalism to induce demand. It's part of the planned economy.

[–] Rhoeri@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

You know there’s advertising in every single form of sociopolitical government, right?

Communism has advertising. As does socialism.

[–] Opinionhaver@feddit.uk 0 points 2 weeks ago

Word of mouth works for someone with an already established customer base but I can't even imagine how I could have gotten my business going when I started a year ago without ads. That's how 99% of my customers found out about me. This is physical flyers though - I don't do online advertising except for maintaining a some kind of social media presence for my business.

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

Ok but what if invent a new product that nobody even knows how to use? Just hope people take the chance on random unknown thing. Where is the ad non ad line drawn?

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