this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2025
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Mildly Interesting

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What If We Made Advertising Illegal? (simone.org)
submitted 1 day 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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[–] dontbelasagne@lemmy.world 2 points 23 hours ago

That's not how it worked before advertising was even a thing. People still found good services and the better services got better word of mouth, all for free.