this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
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Listen, brown, light green, red, and pink paid for advertising and that matters much more than your search query
Maybe I’m bad at colors
Destroy the advertising industry. Burn it alllll down
my favorite thought exercise about advertising:
"without it, we would have to pay out of pocket for ad supported services!"
ok but when a company pays for advertising, where are they getting that money from? an added cost on the products we're buying! so we're paying for product A, we're paying extra for product A to pay for product B with advertising spending AND we're funding product A's marketing department to make the ads on top of that
remove the advertising and we would pay less for product A, we could then afford to pay for B directly AND we would all pay less overall because we take ad department employees and costs out of the equation. we're literally all paying more for everything overall by having some things "free with ads" than if we just paid for everything in the first place with no ads
Advertising isn't an inherently bad thing; it's just gotten way out of control.
Advertising is an inherently bad thing. You have been indoctrinated by a culture dominated by ad men for the past 70 years
Advertising does the above image the overwhelming majority of the time: it funds a product or service and then uses that role as a funder to insidiously destroy the service. Advertising has recognized that customers realize it’s toxic impact so it now quickly entrenches itself in every single industry and product that has eyes on it whenever possible at all costs so it can continue its sociopathic process of destroying functionality and ignoring ethics in favor of “what’s the right product? The one I am selling, of course”
What do you possibly think advertising is good for? Telling you about medicine so you can second guess the doctor that has had decades of experience and insist upon something you heard about on hulu? Destroying everything that was good about the Internet? Plastering every space with so much visual clutter and vibrant color because it drives sales that people now covet muted color palettes at home to escape the constant stimulation?
Destroy the advertising industry
How do people find new products or services without some form of advertising? Yeah everything you said was bad, but they all have solutions if the government is willing. Many countries do not allow advertisements of pharmaceuticals, for example.
Products and services should only be findable when you actually need them. Think using a search engine to find a specific good, or a business sign labeling an establishment. Such bare bones information could be considered advertising, but it does less to to drive human behavior than facilitate it. It's not convincing you to get something, but helping you get what you already decided you need.
The advertising problem, like all problems in capitalism, stem from the ever increasing desire to outcompete and be the only power in town; the need to not just meet the needs of society, but have more power than everyone else in society. Competition drives innovation, but to what end?
Spoiler alert: the end is holding power over fellow men, not making life better for you or them. This evolutionary force optimizes for something other than you as an individual, just like Darwinian evolution.
There was a sticker to put on your mailbox a long time ago:
"Publicity no thank you, Information yes thank you" (or something along those lines).
Publicity is trying to sugarcoat information, we never need that.
Searchable directories. Word of mouth. Community recommendations.
Or just ask the person at the store that sells the things.
Searchable directories like what? Word of mouth and community recommendations is just kicking the can, how are those people supposed to find new things?
Like websites. Search indexing won't suddenly become illegal.
How do you find mortar mix, nails, books, tooth brushes, cats, porn, or cool web comics? Probably not ads. You go looking, or someone you know tells you about them.
PS Because tone is hard to convey in text, let me just make it clear that I'm not trying to be combative or dunk on you or anything. I'm pretty against ads, but understand not everyone views the world as I do.
You do realize that not every business in the country that advertises is a mega conglomerate bent on world domination, right?
Okay, how do those small businesses handle their advertising?
Facebook, google, shitty firms that use local direct mailing campaigns, etc. Sure, your local mechanic isn’t scheming to topple democracy and ruin every product, but they are enabling those who do and skewing results to give themselves an unfair advantage over newer businesses that enter the market because they have the privilege of having the capital to do an adsense buy and maybe hire someone who can fuck with SEO bullshit
Advertising does not need to exist. There simply needs to be a directory of businesses. If I search for mechanics I can find the ones around me. Boom, done. The yellow pages worked for years. I don’t need google to skew results to show me a specific mechanic that happened to spend more money on advertising. I don’t need a random flyer in my mail that reminds me that the concept of a mechanic is still a thing that exists and they happen to be in my area, shocker.
Lol, businesses gamed the yellow pages too since it's inception. Plus, not every business has a brick and mortar storefront.
And a lot of advertising is done through posts on social media now. An artist posting a picture of their painting is them advertising their work.
Not all advertising is like you described.
I'm more with the opposite view: Advertising, which is manipulating people into buying your product, IS inherently a bad thing. Although some cases may be legitimate.
How do you expect people to find out about new businesses? Especially ones without a brick and mortar storefront.
A directory of businesses that is free of gaming the system by paying to play was once the goal of google. If that if functional it is excellent and all it needs to be. It also prevents more established businesses from having even more of an unfair advantage. They already have word of mouth and reviews; why should they be able to simply buy a space that places them on top of popular queries and drown out anyone who enters the market?
Like back in 1999-2002 or so google was constantly adjusting their algorithm to stop people who gamed SEO. Their goal then was that when you searched “custom garfield cum blanket” you got stores that sold exactly that, and ideally the original one if there were knockoffs. That’s what made them a household name and the “king of search” and why you don’t hear about altavista or ask Jeeves anymore
Then they started to realize there was a market emerging for people that could master SEO and slowly but surely they just gave into the advertising side of things. It started with allowing SEO bullshit to go unchecked and eventually turned into now where you can literally buy the first 1 or 2 results of a search query, the first page is useless, and the second page is gone to direct you to a new search that can generate more ad revenue. They’ve utterly destroyed their product
That's literally still advertising lol
No, it’s information compilation. Advertising is offensive because it is obtrusive and unwanted
Again, because apparently you can’t handle reading unless it’s really spelled out for you:
Information compiling is when I seek out a need and find the answer to said need, then compile a database of the various answers for reference. I look up the mechanics and get a list of them and can sort them by distance, review, alphabetically, etc. without having to wade through ones being placed in artificially because they spent money to up their rank regardless of sort
Advertising is when I search “mechanic” and the first page doesn’t necessarily show me the best reviewed (which is flawed because it can be gamed but that’s another issue) or nearest mechanic, but the one who simply gave google adsense the most money. Advertising is when I’m watching a really good show and it suddenly has to break to show 2.5 minutes of garbage, or has a character pick up an obviously branded product (logo facing camera!). Advertising is when I get a flyer in my mailbox labeled “to occupant”.
Advertising is offensive and uninvited. Advertising constantly has people battling to banish it from the internet, streaming services, television, radio, mail, and society basically. The only people who don’t are those who are apathetic, shamelessly consumerist, and the ones who actively profit from the advertising machine
Thus, there is no extension to block the directory of businesses you get when you search for a query on google maps. People want that. There are plenty of extensions to block the sponsored bullshit they throw in those directories though
A directory is something you visit, Jackby.
An advertisement visits you.
Have you ever used a map?
God, the fucking contrarianism.
https://www.yellowpagesoptout.com/ to stop getting the not-ad ads mailed to you that you visit and supposedly aren't thrust on you.
They put a sign on the building that says "Now Open", put the building on the maps, and invite local food critics in for a review.
Read my second sentence
A restaurant without a storefront is just a ghost kitchen.
I'm not sure why you're focusing on restaurants. I said businesses.
Are restaurants not a kind of business?
They're not the only kind of business, which is why it's weird that you're so focused on them.
It's a really accessible concept and one of the most common small business types in the country, plus most of my suggestions that apply to it are largely applicable to many other types of small businesses. Seemed a better argument than a lecture-length fully generalizable concept of "getting a new business going without paying assholes to shove it in my face".
No, you chose it because it specifically can't work with my second sentence because you're not arguing in good faith.
There are many, many types of advertising, and you're only focusing on the most egregious types.
As if your game of devil's advocate was ever in good faith?
All advertising is egregious and I go out of my way to avoid ads to the point that I will stop patronizing businesses for mailing me a flyer. Spending money on marketing is a signal that the business doesn't trust in the quality of their own product or service.
I'm not playing devil's advocate, you just don't know what you're talking about.
Go start a business and tell absolutely no one about it and let me know how it goes.
You seem to be projecting. I started a mobile PC repair business in a small town that got into the black in the first month on word of mouth alone.
How did your first customer know you existed?
I already explained that it was a small town, my first customer called me while I was still finishing up the paperwork to establish an LLC.
I didn't have to tell anyone, I already had a reputation for tech competency and word travels very fast in small towns.
Alright, so for your specific case, it wasn't necessary, but your experience isn't typical.
Even having a sign on your building saying what your business is is a form of advertising. At its core, to advertise is just letting people know that your product or business exists, which is why it's not inherently a bad thing.
Of course you can find examples of it being a bad thing, but it's not true in every instance.
Granted.
Agreed.
Hard disagree.
Even where the harm is minimal, it's still harm. At best, it's a waste of resources that could be doing something useful.
Why is a sign on your building harmful?
The resources used to make the sign don't come from nowhere. They have go be mined, processed, transported, fabricated into a finished product, and shipped again. That's a non-zero environmental impact even for a basic non-illuminated sign.
By that logic, having buildings is harmful. You're never going to achieve zero environmental impact no matter what you do.
But again, not all advertising uses physical resources. If an independent artist shares their work on their social media page for people who want to see their content, that's advertising, and it's not a bad thing.
But, of course you're going to nitpick things to hell until you find the exception.
Edit: Actually, come to think of it, building signage can have a net positive environmental effect. You could easily make a sign with reclaimed lumber or other recycled/upcycled materials.
Buildings provide shelter, advertising provides nothing.
Artists who post their work on social media aren't advertising unless they are also paying to have their posts injected into the feeds of people who don't follow them.
You're talking about targeted advertising, buddy. There's that nitpicking I was talking about, because targeted advertising isn't the only advertising there is.
I'm not just talking about targeted advertising, I'm also talking about paid preferential treatment on black-box algorithmic social networks.
A business could self-publish its own newsletter and it wouldn't be advertisement until they start mailing them to people who didn't sign up for it. If someone follows an artist on social then they have signed up to see those posts.
A self-published newspaper is absolutely an advertisement. So are posts on social media.
Advertising isn't just pushing things on people who didn't sign up for it.
By that definition, gossip with friends is advertisement too whenever it mentions a business. It's an excessively broad view of ads, and that's coming from an enby that won't play live service games because of the dark patterns inherent to their design.
Advertising will always get out of control. It is the nature of the beast. 1 ad that is skippable after 5 seconds before a video was fine, now it's multiple unskippable ads before and throughout the video.
"Subscribe for no ads" until the unsaitable desire for ad revenue becomes "Subscribe for fewer ads".
I was online in the early days of the Internet and didn't use an ad block for quite some time. I was fine with sites getting ad revenue from banner ads I would ignore. Then one day I encountered a banner ads the literally screamed at me through my speakers when I moused over it and I couldn't download an ad blocker fast enough.
Advertising never stops at a reasonable level, is will always push further until it finds the level people won't tolerate then pulls back jusssst a little. The only reasonable response is to not tolerate them at all.