zlacker

>>smnrg+(OP)
This idea isn't uncommon because it's beyond the Overton window, it's uncommon because it is silly and unworkable.

* Total fantasy to think you wouldn't fall afoul of free speech, both legally (in the US) and morally.

In fact, the author touts as a benefit that you'd stop populists being able to talk to their audience. This is destroying the village of liberal democracy in order to save it!

* Absolutely zero thought has been given to how to police the boundaries. Giving a paid speech? Free gifts for influencers? Rewards for signing up a friend?

* Products need marketing. You don't just magically know what to buy. Advertising fulfils an important social role. Yes, I know it can be annoying/intrusive/creepy. "In our information-saturated world, ads manipulate, but they don't inform" is an evidence-free assertion.

* Banning billboards or other public advertising? Fine. Not new. Done all over the place for commonsensical reasons.

* Any article that talks about "blurry, “out-of-focus fascism”—that sense of discomfort that you feel but can't quite point out" is itself blurry and out-of focus, not to say absurd and hyperbolic. Calling a mild sense of psychological discomfort "fascism" is just embarrassing.

>>dash2+We1
I agree with almost all your points, but this is just false:

> Products need marketing. You don't just magically know what to buy.

We don’t need marketing, we need information. Objective information, that would be easier to come by in the absence of manipulative marketing.

>>Hendri+fi1
You are defining marketing as manipulative. In fact, marketing is just "bringing a product to market". For example, it includes having booths at a trade show. The line between objective information and "puff" is impossible to draw. I googled "strollers" and got:

Joolz strollers with ergonomic design, manoeuvrability, compactness, and storage space. compare and choose your favourite Joolz pushchair model.

Is this manipulation or information?

>>dash2+Gi1
We can see historically that advertising evolved from the charmingly blunt "Foo Bros. makers of hats" to "makers of the FINEST hats" (untrue, but at least we still know what business they're in...) to "wear Foo or no one will talk to you again". Along the way, regulations had to be enacted here and there, snake oil didn't actually raise the dead, so lying about that was banned, but letting us feel that we're inadequate because we can see how happy and cool the people wearing Foo are on TV (or TT) is just their free speech. And of course there are the side effects TFA touches on like building trillion dollar empires for Goog and Meta, and using the same levers to manipulate voting and buying.

Personally, I can imagine a world without ads because I block them everywhere I can, and somehow I still manage to buy things, even if they might not be making me feel as cool as I should if I'd only play along.