this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2025
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Mildly Interesting

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This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.

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What If We Made Advertising Illegal? (simone.org)
submitted 2 days 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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[–] onnekas@sopuli.xyz 2 points 8 hours ago

It would be totally sufficient if those things are listed in search engines or maps. Not as ads for other searches but as actual results when you actually search for that stuff. If you like burgers it would be no problem for you to type "burger near me" into your favourite search engines once in a while if you feel like something new. Same for home repair etc.