this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2025
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Mildly Interesting

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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?

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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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[–] RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

It would make promoting new art and events downright difficult.

[–] CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day 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.

[–] batu@lemmy.today 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

People can promote things they like.

[–] RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Advertising is when they’re getting paid for it. Otherwise it’s called recommending.

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world -4 points 1 day ago

Congratulations! You've just reinvented MLMs!

And paying people to suggest they buy something off the guy who has more stuff than they can sell by word of mouth has been our way of efficiently distributing goods for thousands of years. It's almost as if it is solving an actual dilemma.

[–] batu@lemmy.today 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's not the kind of ad we meant.

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

So it's almost as if we don't want to ban all advertising as some versions of it are in fact useful?

[–] CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If you want to split hairs, manipulative advertising is what people are talking about, and I'm sure you know that.

"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 article itself contradicts that notion. I added italics to the bit that highlights this fact. They are literally talking about all ads.