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Comment by mrhappyunhappy | Hacker News Reader

Great, an ad for a documentary. Fascinating story but still an ad.

I got rid of my TV entirely in large part because of the ads. I run an ad blocker. I’m not a fan of most advertising. But man, when something is actually useful and unobtrusive I don’t complain! Imagine if every ad was a captivating story that made you think and introduced interesting concepts (like death being less something to fear and more about what you leave behind). That’s not going to happen, so even if this is an ‘ad’ I for one am quite happy with it.

Fair point. Sometimes I just have angry moments when I realize I’m being sold to. I don’t stop to think that maybe perhaps it’s okay to do this if you are sharing something interesting.

I completely agree! So much of the advertising industry seems to be comprised of people who have an enormous amount of distain for their target demographics. People don't like being taken advantage of or manipulated, and it's depressing that it's gotten to this point.

I just think that in this case, while they (ostensibly) want to promote a documentary, they're presenting it in an honestly compelling way. That's about as much as I could ask for, I think, and I wish others would reimagine how they sell products to align more with this strategy.

This is a fine article in its own right, quite independent of the documentary.

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