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What If We Made Advertising Illegal? (simone.org)
submitted 2 years ago by 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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[–] 40 points 2 years ago (7 children)

Yes yes yes, this!

I always joke w my gf, that when I'm president, I'll ban marketing. It's ugly, wasteful, useless (from the consumer's pov,) annoying, etc. I can't believe it's not hyper-regulated and taxed into oblivion.

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  • [+] -14 points 2 years ago* (6 children)

    How....Would you do that?

    You do know that that marketing or advertising is far FAR more fundamental right? Yeah, there is a lot of BS these days, for sure.

    But the concept of trying to find someone to sell something you made too cannot be banned. Unless you have a solution to the entire concept of "selling" anything, and turn society into one without needs?

    It's 5000 BC and I just made a pot with a lip that pours water easier. I tell someone about this in hopes they might want one too so i can survive on my work <----- that's advertising.

    It's 2000 BC and I discovered a new spice and am trying to sell it for cooking. I demonstrate how it smells <----- that's advertising.

    ....etc Apply this to almost everything anyone has made that they try to sell to someone else. They advertise and market it.

    right now, your own post, marketing what you might do as president.... Is a form of marketing.

    It's deeply engrained in every single society, and has been for thousands (tens of thousands?) of years. It's a fundamental concept for humans and humans society.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    They and possibly op (with their argument that 99.9% ad free) is referring to modern day advertisements that mass manipulates people. A person in 2000 BC telling their spice is better doesn't compare to our modern advertisement system which targets suggestible people with well placed targeted ads. They also are probably referring to those ads which you constantly see barging into your every day life in the form of billboards, banners etc. If you were to search for a something in Google, most often the front result would be non relevant SEO garbage or AI gibberish promoting something which is not relevant to something you searched. Oh you want to know why you have this BSOD screen and warning, check out this antivirus software sort of bullshit results.

    Even though what you said is right, that advertisement has fundamentally existed ever since human moved out of tribal society, the form of advertisement we see now is never before seen and in my opinion which I agree with OP is than we can indeed abolish current form of advertisement and move on without significant impact on normal people. Ofcourse we would still be documenting products and people who want that could still seek out what they want based on their requirement (this might qualify as advertisement since the product won't be seen without information regarding it, but it's no way comparable to the form of advertisement you and I mentioned above).

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    You can and should make the distinction between being paid to advertise something and sharing information based on your believes. There is such a thing as free marketing and I agree you cannot ban that, but you can ban paid advertising in a similar way as paid sex is banned in many places across the world.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    Would @douglasg14b@lemmy.world please share your thoughts on the response from @Maldreamer@lemmy.world?

    Of course if these ideas were ever put into practice, they'd require the establishment of definitions, scope, parameters, exceptions, consequences, etc.

    I think a lot of us understand the spirit of the OP, and you're showing us you aren't on the same page or even opened the book.

    Sure, if the offered idea was to abolish every philosophically tangential advertisment, then you'll be the advertisor of reason when we advertise bans on flowers' colors because they advertise to pollinators, or bans on babies' cries because they're advertising their want of nourishment.

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