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What If We Made Advertising Illegal? (simone.org)

submitted 1 week 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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[–] Psythik@lemm.ee 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ad companies are never going to regulate themselves—it's like hoping for heroin dealers to write drug laws.

Actually, I think that's a good idea. Everyone already knows that banning recreational drugs only makes more people want to try them. And seeing how the legal weed system in my home state is controlled entirely by a handful of billionaires who artificially keep prices high, I think it would be a lot wiser to put legalization in the control of the common people.

What a terrible analogy.

[–] cinnamonTea@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 week ago

I agree that it'd be good to out legislation in the control of the common people - but putting it in dealers' hands is just asking for new conflicts of interests, at least if it's in their hands only