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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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[–] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 1 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

That'd be great, but the "how" is a much harder question. What counts as advertising? Because there's a reason Google, Meta, etc. have their fingers in so many different industries: every single thing that gets attention could be leveraged for advertising, even the act of suppressing mentions of competitors.

Should I be able to say "X product has been great, I recommend it!" Only if I'm not being paid, you say? How could you possibly know?

As discussed in the article, "propaganda" is illegal. So any discussion about how terrible trump is would also be illegal. Propaganda doesn't mean false, it just means it's trying to convince you of something. An advertisement. Heck, the article itself could be considered a form of advertising for legislation.

It's just so trivial of a concept to say, but the moment you spend any amount of time thinking about it, it falls apart. It's like trying to ban the Ship of Theseus from a club.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 weeks ago

What counts as advertising?

Let's say you ban ad breaks on TV / streams. In the early days of radio and TV they didn't have ad breaks, the host of the show would just go on for a while about his favourite brand of cigarettes. In the modern world, pretty much any time you see a name brand in a TV show or movie, it's because they've been paid for product placement.

So... you could solve that by never allowing the mentioning of any brand name in any form of media. That would make reviews illegal. That's fair, I suppose, because reviews are definitely seen as a form of advertising. That's why companies often provide review copies of things for free to journalists in the hope they might talk/write about them. Maybe you could carve out an exception allowing a brand and model to be mentioned if there are safety issues or product recalls?

Ok, so now you have a Formula 1 event, it's on TV but you have to pay for that broadcast because it's not ad supported. The cars, of course, don't have any ads on them. But, are they allowed to have the manufacturer's name and logo on them? Is it advertising if say Ferrari puts a lot of money into F1, wins a lot, and so when you watch the news you see Ferrari-red cars with Ferrari logos winning a race? Also, could the drivers wear coveralls with the Ferrari logo on them? What about fans of Ferrari, could they wear a shirt with the Ferrari logo on them if they were simply fans of the brand? What if this supposed Ferrari fan were a supermodel? Does someone have to carefully go through the finances of any very attractive person to see if they're ever wearing a logo not because they're a fan but because they've been compensated?

I'm in favour of reducing the amount of advertising we see. I think it's a bit absurd now. But, while it's possible to tax it or regulate it, I think it would be very hard to completely eliminate it.

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

The phrase "ban advertising" is reductive. Different countries have different laws around ads. For example, anime shows have bumpers in them because in Japan they are required by law to clearly indicate when advertising starts and stops.

There's also laws against billboards, against targeting children, against specific industries, and limiting the amount of advertising available. I could see laws against targeted ads like Meta uses being implemented as well.

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

The problem is: Where does advertising start. Is mentioning a brand name somewhere already advertising? If I have a brand, call it GLURP, am I allowed to print GLURP on the product, on the box, on the instructions? Am I allowed to have a website called GLURP.com, and what would be allowed to be shown there? Can I open a shop and have a sign "GLURP" over the window? Can I really exhibit my products there?

Because all of this is advertising.

I think we can all agree that 99.99% at least of intruding ads on the net, billboards, TV, radio, whatever, are annoying and should go away. But any ruling trying to reign this in needs to set 100% clear and undisputable limits, because they will sacrifice their own kids to somehow skirt such a law. If you don't believe me, look at tax laws and how the rich don't pay taxes (despite frequent bouts of crying over the 37% they never pay).

[–] Opinionhaver@feddit.uk 1 points 4 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 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

[–] whereisk@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

The idea that advertising is a new invention is nonsense.

Yes, it had different forms but it was there.

Eg: What are the priests if not sales people and what are the Sunday bells if not calls to action, and what are the icons and statues if not aspirational advertising and fomo?

What are shop windows? What are branding marks?

Here is advertising in Ancient Rome

[–] jeena@piefed.jeena.net 0 points 4 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 1 points 4 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.

[–] heavydust@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 weeks ago

The web has been cleaned with uBlock Origin. Doing that IRL would be great. And for every stupid counter argument (I've seen those on HackerNews), I don't tolerate brain washing.

The most stupid argument I've seen is from an American who said "what if you don't know about the effects of a drug that could save your life?" Well, that's the job of the doctor. Your society has failed if you rely on marketing to eat random chemical dangerous stuff.

[–] termaxima@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago

I think local businesses should still be allowed some form of advertisement, and also especially local cultural establishments to advertise what shows are currently running. In limited, dedicated spaces.

Otherwise, I agree. No more ads.

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

It's also a form free market distortion that actual economic conservatives should hate.

Rather than having firms compete for who can make the best product or service, advertising instead lets them compete based on who can best psychologically manipulate the population en masse.

It's a "rich get richer" mechanic that any halfway competent dev would've patched out for balance reasons a long time ago.

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

It's also such a funny contradiction: a big part of the free market model rests on the idea that well informed consumers can vote with their wallet, which should reward good businesses and punish bad ones. Yet it is very difficult to argue consumers have ever been informed enough to make this work, which is in large part due to advertising flooding communication channels with noise, and also because it is unreasonable to expect a consumer to be fully informed for the hundreds of purchases they make on a daily basis.

[–] douglasg14b@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

You cannot get away from advertising, ever, in any society, in any financial system, at any point of time in history after tribal societie.

It's a concept that you can't just "ban", nearly all the problems we have with it today is because it's uncontrolled and abused. The concept itself though is as unbannable as the concept of "selling" something.

The concept:

"trying to find someone who can use something you made"

Is literally as old as humans moving away from tribal societies.

You can make the best thing in the world, but if no one knows about it, it's still useless.

[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 0 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

It's already been done. Sao Paolo Brazil banned all outdoor advertisements.

https://99percentinvisible.org/article/clean-city-law-secrets-sao-paulo-uncovered-outdoor-advertising-ban/

[–] douglasg14b@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago

No they didn't that's not banning advertising but that's regulating a specific type of advertising.

There's a pretty big difference.

[–] AugustWest@lemm.ee 0 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

And if you have the name of your business and what you sell on your store front? That's advertising. Or a card with your name on it to hand out to customers or coupons. That's advertising. Or logos on clothing or a sign that sits near the road that says SALE. That is advertising.

OP was downvoted for saying the truth, regulation is important, but businesses will fail if they have no way to catch your interest.

In fact it gets worse because small businesses will never be seen because nobody will have heard of them and everyone goes to the big store everyone already knows about.

There is balance to be had....

[–] douglasg14b@lemmy.world -1 points 4 weeks ago

Lemmy is essentially just like Reddit at this point. It's just a bunch of the lowest common denominator circle jerking a lack of critical thinking.

You cannot have intelligent discussion, and group think is all that matters. Folks will not read your comment, they will find the single phrase they disagree with and hold onto it for dear life, missing the entire point.

And then ignore the whole premise and idea behind the discussion and reply in a way that makes absolutely no sense if they had average reading comprehension....

I miss the old Internet, where you could actually have discussions and pass ideas back and forth.

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

Don't ever—for any reason—do anything to anyone for any reason ever. No matter what, no matter where, or who, or who you are with, or where you are going, or where you've been… ever, for any reason whatsoever…

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Then we’d have a centrally-planned economy I guess. I don’t really see how a free market would work without advertising.

[–] GaMEChld@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago

At the very least it comes down to regulation of speech. Advertising is speech. Even if you got rid of like actual commercials, you'll just shift advertising towards product placement and utilization rather than over advertisements.

Definitely a complex thing.

[–] RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works 0 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

It would make promoting new art and events downright difficult.

[–] CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 0 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

What's wrong with making a societal shift where people learn to go out and look for what they want? It's not like you can't have a website with a schedule of all the activities for your ________. And if people want to see or do ________ they can come find out when and where instead of the constant barrage of shit they aren't interested in anyway.

There are better ways.

[–] RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works 0 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

And you know about this website how exactly?

Seriously advertisements have been used for thousands of years because they solve a very real problem namely how do you get people interested in the extra stuff you have?

[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 0 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

You realize searching the web can exist without ads or unfair pay structures ... right??

[–] RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works -1 points 4 weeks ago

Ok? How do you know about these websites if you only have word of mouth?

Unfair pay structures have nothing to do with this.

[–] knobbysideup@sh.itjust.works 0 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Believe it or not, advertising on the Internet was originally highly frowned upon. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Canter_and_Martha_Siegel

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

Still is, but it used to be, too.

[–] RoyaltyInTraining@lemmy.world 0 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

The economy should exist to serve real needs of the people. All that advertisement does is create a fake desire for consumption which simply wastes respurces.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Getting rid of advertising in a capitalist society would be devastating for all new and small businesses. Start an IT company, tow truck company, Trash removal, plumber, electrician, pest, all dead. Really any company that isnt already known would likely die, and the current large companies would be the only ones that exist. Also what counts as advertising, am I going to jail for telling my friend about a new game I tried? That's advertising.

[–] Tehdastehdas@lemmy.world 0 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

There used to be a business catalog book called "yellow pages". Now there are map applications, price comparison sites, customer review sites, and keyword search engines. All of those make advertisements unnecessary.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 weeks ago

That's advertising. The entire phone book was a sold adventure. Jail, prison, what is the punishment for advertising. I think people have forgotten what advertising is. I ask you you favorite movie, you answer, advertising. If you tell me Lemmy is a decent place, advertising. Any app, game, movie, music, software, hardware, car, plant, advertising. Stop talking about any object if you want ALL advertising to be illegal as the description says

[–] O_R_I_O_N@lemm.ee 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Just making billboards ads illegal. It would make every city and the places in-between instantly better

[–] desktop_user@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

but where's the line between giant TVs on buildings and billboards?

[–] pelley@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago

The way the Maine law works, you are only allowed to have billboard-like signage (whether digital or old school) if it's on the premises of the business. No off-premise billboards or screens are allowed. And digital signage must not be too bright or distracting for drivers.