zlacker

Best one I heard was people claiming products will be more expensive if personalized advertising is banned. Because then it’ll cost more to promote them.

>>mantas+(OP)
Interesting line of reasoning. :-)

That would imply, that (globally) we spent significantly [EDIT: remove -less-, insert:] more on advertising before the advent of personalized targeting.

>>repels+N1
I think it's the other way around. If we go back to the situation in the past, price goes up, not down.

>>mantas+(OP)
Marketing is a major cost factor for many products. You can't sustainably sell anything for less than customer acquisition cost. This is familiar to SaaS people but also high margin products like perfume and professional services.

>>repels+N1
Not necessarily, cost reductions can increase, decrease or have no effect the total expenditure on goods. The total effect is quite ambiguous depending on the income and substitution effects.

>>smeej+I2
Correct, my bad.

Got confused while writing by the observation that ad expenditure is rising year after year. So clearly, the "savings" allegedly attributed to personalized targeting have not translated to advertisers.

>>spaceb+C5
I agree. I've always heard "charge what the market will bear."

Why would a reduction in advertising costs equate to lower consumer pricing — if there's a better margin to be had instead?

>>spaceb+W3
That’s why I try to avoid products that sponsor major sports events/teams/athletes/etc. I want a good product, not surrounding marketing.

Products with no fancy marketing, frequently coming from smaller local companies, bring much better price/quality ratio.

>>aesh2X+cd
Because for most products brand fidelity isn't keeping competition away. Higher than necessary margin does not last long in a competitive market.

>>mantas+Gt1
Each time i see an ad showing a product i bought trigger the realisation some of my own money was wasted into wasting my precious attention.

The sponsoring of brainwashing is worse than the value loss.

>>hirako+XD1
Good point. That can be true if two competitors are competing on price as a primary factor. Price might not be the biggest factor, however, and improving the margin would be attainable in that gap.