zlacker

>>smnrg+(OP)
This feels very similar in my mind to blanket concepts like "let's ban lobbying". There are certainly specific modes or practices in lobbying that are damaging to society, but lobbying itself (specifically, informing lawmakers about your specific perspective and desires) is a valid and desirable function.

Likewise, advertising on its own at its core is useful: there might be something that adds value to your life that someone else is trying to provide and the only missing link is that you don't know about it.

In both cases, it seems totally fine to have strict guardrails about what kinds of practices we deem not okay (e.g. banning advertising to children, or banning physical ads larger than some size or in some locations), but the extreme take of the article felt like it intentionally left no room for nuance.

>>gamema+8i
>is a valid and desirable function

No I don’t think so. I would genuinely guess that 97% of the ads I see are irrelevant garbage or, more commonly, bids by products I know to raise awareness to increase the probability of their sale. I discover the vast majority of what I care about through word of mouth and I suspect I’d be fine without ads. There are so many negative externalities that it’s actually ridiculous.

>>Briggy+Pa1
And pray tell how the chain of word of mouth started for that product?

>>yunohn+jc1
Word of mouth is an amplification mechanism that also filters. It seems silly to imagine a product spreading by word of mouth because of how bad today’s products often are. Rather than having to earn spread through appeal, companies can pay money to shortcut the process. In an advertising-less world word of mouth would carry farther because the products would adapt to the filter to be better. It would probably take awareness plenty far to enable a business owner to tell you, 4-6 hops away, about his/her innovative new vacuum or whatever.