this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2025
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Mildly Interesting

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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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[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 5 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

You're absolutely right. Any small business left would beg big corporations for buyouts, for pennies on the dollar. Small time influencers would skirt it by the millions. It'd make cyberpunk fiction look tame.

It might be better if some "standard catalog" was popularized, but still a calamity.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah I mean a had a Lyft driver give me a card for her son the other day who opened a mobile hair salon. Is it useful for people, sure. Could he exist without advertising, absolutely not.