this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2025
1416 points (98.2% liked)

Mildly Interesting

19880 readers
391 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
 

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.

(page 3) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I think regulation is better than abolishing it.

With most initiatives that have been made in good faith to avoid bad actors, it will usually hit the little guy the hardest.

In my country, for example, you can apply for grants for your business for developing your business. Great right? Wrong. The bureaucracy is so crazy that small businesses, whom this grant was aimed towards, cannot feasibly take the grant. It is too expensive for them to go through all the steps to get the money for the developmental aspect of the business that they would lose money as a business and not be able to recoup their losses. The grant money are so small and aren't allowed to be used to run the business at all that it simply isn't worth it to even try. You would essentially have to work for free for days or weeks in some cases to get this tiny portion that will now sink your company instead of developing it.

However, a big business with many employees and time and money to spare, could easily apply for the grant and get it without a sweat, despite them not needing it at all.

That is how I'd see a potential ban of ads affect the market. The big businesses who got to benefit from ads and marketing in the past will continue to do well because people know them while any and all new start ups and smaller businesses would drown and go bankrupt due to them not being allowed to make people aware of their business.

It is a bit too utopic for my taste to suggest a ban. But regulation would be a good thing in my opinion.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Oh what a world. But it would NEVER happen. Might as well wish for super powers.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

I concur.

Some places limit advertising more than others. Banned on footpaths and dangerous spots. What about sales persons? How do you brand a product? I think it would have to be well defined.

I am ok with technical information being provided by a staff member. So much shit is peddled through marketing. As the scientist designing the product, I want to tell them the truth, customers love the truth, in this regard. I think banning deception and conning further would be a good way. And fuck this debt model of economics. And how about universities turn back into noble education organisations, not cocksucking psuedo-businesses.

I think govts/politicians like keeping the vague open because they use it, too. Their propaganda departments are cucked with good fact checking teams.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Los Angeles county vs Orange county.

LA allows billboards, OC doesn't. It just feels so much cleaner and like a breath of fresh air as you drive from LA into OC.

[–] JoeBigelow 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Same with Maine, state banned billboards. Makes it super weird when you head south and get assaulted by them in Mass

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (16 children)

OTA tv would no longer be possible, nor radio AM or FM.
Newspapers (what is left of them) would no longer be possible, neither wouild magazines.
A good deal of the internet is supported by ads too.
If you are willing to give up everything that is supported by ads, I suppose it could work.

load more comments (16 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (5 children)

I’m definitely in favor of a ban of advertising in public spaces. Spaces that are owned by the collective ‘us’ should remain free of it. Like public squares, roadways, public transit, etc. Those should be commercial free.

A total ban would be wildly difficult and impractical. It would also widen certain gaps like the rural-urban divide. How would someone in a rural area know an iPhone exists, if the nearest store is a hundred miles away? Or other products that might be beneficial to them?

I live in a city of 160.000 people. And even here, we simply don’t have every store or every product available. Advertising broadens that horizon considerably.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] Yoga 8 points 1 week ago

Pretty sure I wrote about this while on LSD once lol

Sounds like a good idea but has the same odds of happening as billionaires voluntaringly giving away 99% of their wealth.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

I would like meaningful regulation on advertising. Something to the effect of "STOP BLASTING MY FACE WITH ADS EVERY CHANCE YOU GET YOU SCUMFUCKERS"

There is a gas station nearby who runs non-stop unmutable (there is no mute button) ads. I don't go to that gas station anymore.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I HATE when I am forced to watch commercials, in front of my face on the gas pump, while I am pumping gas into my vehicle. I should really get a discount on my gas for that.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

YEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSS!

This feels like I wrote it. I've hated advertising for about as long I have been aware of it but I've been telling people we should ban it since the first time I saw one of those articles about how everything was becoming clickbait because of advertising. In all that time, the ONLY thing I have ever thought of which would be a negative effect from a ban is the difficulty of getting the word out about a small business. Any other arguments are just dumb. Advertising is inherently harmful to everyone exposed to it, even the advertisers, who have to burn money to make it happen.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

I have hated few things in this world as much as advertising. It is one of the few industries I feel is beyond saving and produces nothing of value at all levels. I am of the opinion that advertising is like cancer, whenever it is allowed to get a foothold somewhere it will eventually kill the host. For-profit companies can not resist the easy money promised by advertising, so the only way to combat it is not have it to begin with.

I go out of my way to pay for the things I use with money and not attention if at all possible. I will nearly always favor buying from a company that does not get most of their revenue from advertising, even if it means I pay more for the product and it is a less capable product or service.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

I want to live there. I can't tell you how sick I am of ads. I've seen a lifetime of advertisements and I'm done.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I think some kind of mix approach, example some countries ban some kind of advertising. Advertising medical prescription drugs and treatments is illegal in some countries.

Alternatively companies should pay me to watch their advertisements. Organize events to pay people to watch their advertisement.

With smart glasses AR and AI we should be able to block out all billboard, posters or it could go the opposite way glasses show all kind of adverts.. hmm. We need open source AR smart glasses with adblock.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ad companies are never going to regulate themselves—it's like hoping for heroin dealers to write drug laws.

Actually, I think that's a good idea. Everyone already knows that banning recreational drugs only makes more people want to try them. And seeing how the legal weed system in my home state is controlled entirely by a handful of billionaires who artificially keep prices high, I think it would be a lot wiser to put legalization in the control of the common people.

What a terrible analogy.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

If only. Wouldn't that be something?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

I have existed totally ad free for a few years now. I use a whitelist DNS filter.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

The best way to make advertising uninteresting or useless is to provide an alternative form of making money. If the default way to monetise a website, video, or whatever is ads, then ads will continue to be used. If we actually had an alternative that was as or more lucrative, that's what would be used.

"Ban it" also means you need a way to enforce it, and even if it were banned in one country, that's just one country. They might finally come up with an alternative, but why wait for a ban? Why not discuss and test alternatives here instead of just dreaming that a solution magically shows up?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

before ads we need to get rid of political campaigning.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

What do you mean by campaigning? Do you mean no political ads or PACs then yeah definitely agree. But if you mean all forms of campaigning then how are politicians supposed to communicate who they are and why you should vote for them to the people? And outside of politicians if political campaigning is not allowed would that also not allow grass roots movements who door knock or hold rallys about specific issues? Political campaigning is all of those things, I definitely agree we need to get big money out of it but I don't think it should be gotten rid of all together.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

Same thing. Include those under the same law and solve both problems at once. 💛

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I've literally never understood the advertising industry.

Like, a company gives another company money to waste bandwidth... How many people even watch ads? As a kid, that's when you'd leave the TV to get a drink or use the bathroom. As an adult, I run adblockers and haven't see an advertisement in ages - yet these companies are continuing to spend money on this?

What's worse is how they actually think people associate the random shit that plays before/during the content you want to watch to the point that they're forcing creators to dumb down the content. Like, I get it if the platform itself is shit, but come on. If you REALLY want to know what's harming your brand, it wouldn't be the guy saying "shit fuck" 50 times, it would be the fucking advertisement that's breaking the flow and interrupting the guy saying "shit fuck" 50 times. I'd sooner see people avoiding these products specifically because of the negative association.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›