Mildly Interesting

There is state funded news media called European Broadcasting Union, which can do whatever without ads.

either governments and/or individuals would need to support them, it's hardly impossible

They’re getting way more money from stealing and selling data than ads anyway and really, TV and Radio only need to exist over the air for emergency or government stations so no income is needed. We shut off 3G, freeing up those radio and TV bands would be no problem.

Large corporate owned would be impossible. What you would see are more locally small businesses that get more customers. However things would be more expensive overall at a glance. But I bet we would see general living go up for all.

It's not a bad point, and also highlights how we're simultaneously spoiled for "free" platforms, while we're surveilled for content and metrics, and bombarded by general and targeted advertising.

It's like, imagine a world where there was a water fountain at the corner of every street, every parking lot, and every bus stop. How convenient that would be! But every time you walked near one they would squawk out a little ad.

Sure without the ads, you wouldn't have the water fountains. But given the choice, I'd rather put up with the inconvenience of having to carry a water bottle when I'm out for a long time.

To me the choice seems obvious. Maybe to some people the ads don't feel like such a intrusion, though?

We have this in Maine and it’s wonderful. Any time I drive through another state, the gross billboards are such a jolting sight (and blight).

but where's the line between giant TVs on buildings and billboards?

Online recipes will still have long, unnecessary stories at the start.

This is less because of that and more copyright. You can't copyright a recipe as such, so the framing and layout and bullshit narrative are there to fix that.

You also can't escape the society affected by advertising. And it would be reasonable to assume that advertising not just increases consumerism, leading to pollution and worse climate change and genocide, but also must have an effect on the mind.

I would assume that people conditioned with advertising are less able to make rational decisions for e.g. voting. Advertising might have similar adverse effects on developing brains to lead in drinking water. But I doubt there is much academic research on this.

Another thing I always thought about this is how beautiful our cities and world could look if there was no advertising everywhere.

PS: Really good article. There is a sci-fi movie "Branded (2012)" which dramatizes this idea.

You know there’s advertising in every single form of sociopolitical government, right?

Communism has advertising. As does socialism.

Adding “destructive fines” to my list

"We need a large group of ideologically committed bureaucrats willing to impose policy in the face of a defiant, intractable established opposition" is simultaneously true and not terribly helpful, unless you can show where these people are coming from.

Like, we've seen instances of this happen before. Elon's DOGE is a great current example of a group of ideologically dedicated barn burners. The OG FBI was another great example of a department effectively founded to militantly oppose a well-financed and popular opposition. FDR's court appointees (and his arm-twisting with the threat to further pack the courts) could be considered another.

But who in the modern political system wants to go head-to-head with multinational corporations (other than the Trump Tariff goons, I guess)? Dems are Pro-Business. Republicans are Pro-Fascist Business. There is no leadership, outside of a handful of die-hards like AOC and Bernie - who could conceivably be both willing and able to execute on these kinds of reforms.

I wish there was. But this is just pie-in-the-sky dreaming until you can find a municipal or state government with the kind of people engaged enough to rally for it and seek promotion to the federal level on this kind of platform.