zlacker

>>iambat+(OP)
Advertising is a parasitic force on society. It sucks up your attention with a willful intention to change your purchasing behaviour, often knowing that the new behavior is worse for you.

If ads were merely about being informative, they would be boring. But ads want to manipulate, so they have to be flashy and appeal to your emotions.

They pollute your mental headspace, and have no place in a healthy society.

Let's ban billboards. And then let's follow that up with a general purpose ban on paid advertisement.

>>Taek+F1
I think this is deeply and fundamentally wrong.

Advertising is how small and new companies can reach customers. It's how monopolies are broken. It's how progress reaches the masses.

Yes, it is willfully intended to change people's behavior. So are many of our posts on HN. That is an important purpose for communication!

>>Burnin+T6
Gotta disagree. The most disruptive up and comers seem to get there through word of mouth. I mean look at Figma. I haven't seen a single Figma ad since they began as a company (they probably exist somewhere) but they really rocketed off through word of mouth among the design community. Pretty sure slack was similar in this regard. Both disrupters.

I have no actual evidence of this always being the case but I would imagine given the fact the nature of a disrupter is that they're usually operating on principles of delivering a better product but without the budget to go crazy with advertising, they have to find more grassroots methods of market penetration.