Mildly Interesting

It blew my mind when I read that snacking wasn't a thing until rather recently. In the past, there were three meals a day, if you were lucky.
Nowadays, we all are constantly told by advertising to "take a break" and stuff ourselves. Take a break from what? Sitting in an office chair? Who is really tilling the soil from dawn to dusk anymore? And then they wonder about the worldwide obesity epidemic. A big mystery, indeed.

I would argue that what this article is advocating for isn't a definitive end to advertisement per se. Truthfully that would be impossible.

What we truly need are iron clad privacy laws that impose unbreakable regulations with destructive fines when violated by companies and organizations.

“Online communities” are great, but how do you stop them from being infiltrated by corporate astroturfers within five minutes of creation? Doesn’t every major brand have a low-overhead keyboard farm posting social media and forum comments to make them look good?

#YES, PLEASE.

I have been fighting advertising in my own way since the early 2000s:

• I abandoned broadcast radio in the mid-1990s. I can’t recall the last time I turned on a car radio.
• I abandoned broadcast TV in 2001
• I jumped on board with Adblock the moment it was released for Phoenix (now Firefox) back in 2004
• The lone streaming service I actually subscribe to is the cheapest non-advertising tier available
• Torrenting covers many of the remaining gaps
• Even my Internet Radio stations are chosen primarily through lack of advertising.

It’s gotten to the point where stumbling across an ad is the mental equivalent to nails on a chalkboard.

Oh please gods yes. Advertising is violence and even though most of my life is now ad free, I still can't avoid the advertising scourge being shoved into my eyeballs every time I leave my house. It would be a blessed weight lifted from my already tired brain to never see a single ad again.

Another part of the problem I haven't read in the comments is all the companies that rely on advertising to exist, especially media companies. Many newspapers, magazines, websites, TV channels etc would go bankrupt if they couldn't earn money with advertising. There is a simple solution because we can 'just pay them' but I'm afraid we won't. People hate advertising (someone commented "advertising is violence", that really says it all), but still many of us choose to not get the subscription but use the 'free' option instead.

I'm not against banning all advertising, but I think working towards more peaceful advertising might be fruitful. Banning advertising of tabacco products and having disclaimers when financial and medical products show this can be done.

As I sat down this morning to enjoy my warm and full-flavored Folger's coffee, it got me thinking: traditional advertising might disappear, but something sneakier would inevitably fill the void: product placement.

The thing is I don't think I would mind advertising if it wasn't shoved down my throat 24/7. The fact I can't read a webpage without ads blocking everything, I can't watch TV without more than half of the show's runtime being ads in and out of segments, I can't even step outside without seeing the billboard or another 5 ads shoved in my mailbox!

I get 15 some-odd emails a day from different companies trying to get me to buy things. I block them and they pop up with a different email address. I can't even open my email without ads popping up masquerading as actual messages (Gmail). Don't get me started on the entire Google app thing.

I can't open an online map without getting SPONSERED listings. And places I use the app to order from try to advertise me their own food WHILE I'M ORDERING. Panda Express started asking me if I want a subscription to Starz or whatever.

NO. NO. NO.

I'm exhausted. I want to go to a store without being immediately inundated with ads or sellers. "Buy this!" NO. LEAVE ME ALONE.

I'm overwhelmed. I'm overstimulated. I'm done. I don't care how "quirky" or "flashy" or "hip" your ads are. I refuse to buy anything I see ads for now. It's too much. Shut up.

TL;DR: we need controls and limits to who, what, where, and how things are advertised. It should be an enforcable crime to have ads louder than a certain decibel for one. But it's not enforced and fines aren't more than a drop in the bucket. I doubt I'll see it in ny lifetime.

I don't like to buy anything I've seen advertised. I just don't trust it

Even with an adblock and the best privacy controls available, you cannot escape the effects of advertising. Article headlines will still be clickbait. Online recipes will still have long, unnecessary stories at the start. Companies will still want your email for trivial things so they can spam you. There are a hundred ways that advertising affects culture, and it's not something that can change based on individual effort.

As someone who had designed and attempted to sell things. On of my key takeaways has always been the lack of awareness or knowledge of my things exists.

Granted if I put a 50ft build board in the sky it wouldn’t change much. But if I did more than I did.. or am doing it would help.

I saw a metaphor in this thread comparing advertising to Smoking. But I think Sugar is a better comparison. Is it needed? No. But a little will go a long way, and some dishes wouldn’t exists without it. Add to much and it ruins the flavour of the dish and isn’t healthy for the consumer.

What is needed is balance and where everything has hyper sugar in it isn’t good for anyone. So I do we need a rethink, but eliminating it outright isn’t the solution.

Interesting concept. Over the last few decades we have seen cigarettes/vapes alcohol, small plastics etc come under scrutiny as they harm people’s health. But there are physical objects that harm physical health.

Advertising is much more subjective I tend of what constitutes harm, and mental health is again still on the back foot compared to body health.

In some places we have seen bans on cigarette adverting and even bans on cigarettes. So at a small scale it can be implemented.

I loved ads as a kid. It shaped my career, but it’s an out of control monster that needs looking at. I am growing to hate it.

Pretty dumb article if you spend more than a second thinking about this issue.

The entire historical premise that we "didn't have ads" is so fucking incorrect and reeks of appeal to nature. Yeah we didn't have tv ads but we had monarchs and elite that played the same role. How is paying of some sleezy high up salesman is different from a Google search ad? If anything the latter is more ethically apt.

I'd take democracy with ads over whatever the fuck that alternative timeline that polices "unpaid word of mouth"

Cool idea but we live under the violent imposition of capitalism.

If you just made it criminal to misrepresent what you are selling then it would be progress. Any measure of truth in advertising would be a plus. None currently exist.

Yes please nobody should be able to pay to force people to look at eye cancer ads

That'd be nice.

I’ve had adblockers on my browsers for years and pay for ad-free streaming. I easily went over a decade without seeing an ad on a screen in my own home. But when I’d go to a restaurant that had TVs (or to my mom’s house where she’d run the TV constantly) I’d marvel at how unwatchable it was. Just a constant interruption.

My wife has a friend who produced a TV series for Tubi and so we signed up to check it out and, wow. I had to tap out of watching it because of the ads. Just completely obnoxious and loud.

I refuse to watch all advertising.