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

submitted 4 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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[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago (1 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?

[–] bss03@infosec.pub 0 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

The communication methods mentioned in the summary can work for this. It might take longer than a quarter-year to peak/saturate the market but introducing such a novel product should require longer-term thought.

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago

What communication method that could exist that is not fundamentally an ad. Unless people go around window shopping but then again is window of the shop an ad? What if you put a little board with pricing there? What if it's written very nicely?

I think a bad ad is bad and good ad is good, it's OK to police this but outright ban seems kinda silly to realize