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

submitted 2 days 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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[–] LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee 4 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I think you're drawing the wrong conclusions. Currently you need a lot of capital to market a new product. That shifts the balance of power away from entrepreneurs towards the capitalists. Marketing also has a larger impact on profits than engineering, which leads to non-engineers to gain more promotions and power.

Instead we could have reviews, testing institutions, forums where people exchange opinions. And "pay for play" would be illegal fraud. But there would be constant demand to learn and compare the quality of products, once the focus on emotional manipulation is gone.

And existing brands from conglomerates spend oodles of money to maintain their brands, so you would immediately see a shift in power towards entrepreneurs and new and better products. You'd gain far more than you'd loose.

Another issue is that we are hyperstimulating consumerism which has not just negative effects, but leads to existential risk now.

[–] the16bitgamer@programming.dev 1 points 11 hours ago

I agree for existing products. But for new products before reviews are there. It’s very very hard to make your product stand out. Or to convince buyers to try it out.