Hacker News Reader

Comment by wpietri | Hacker News Reader

That seems a big post hoc ergo propter hoc to me. I'm glad that you found something you're happy with. But in a world without advertising, you can still find things you need, even novel ones.

For example, I got a Garmin sports watch recently, and one of the reviews I found was from DC Rainmaker, who is exactly the sort of detail-oriented obsessive I love reading reviews from. That got me to read some of his other reviews and I discovered that there's now a whole category of bike radar units that let you know when somebody is overtaking you. That's amazing! When I return to cycling, I will absolutely buy one.

Does that mean I have to be in favor of all blogs? Or that my life will be worse if that blogger stops reviewing? Definitely not. I could have learned about this product in many other ways. Bike stores! Bike forums! The manufacturer's website! Other cyclists! Review sites! Bike magazines! Etc, etc.

View on HN

> But in a world without advertising, you can still find things you need, even novel ones.

Sure, eventually. Maybe. But I'm glad this information was pushed to me when it was.

> I could have learned about this product in many other ways. Bike stores! Bike forums! The manufacturer's website! Other cyclists! Review sites! Bike magazines! Etc, etc.

It amuses me that at least two of the examples you listed are just other marketing channels by companies (magazines and their own website) and marketers definitely work in forums, review sites, sending information to stores, and other cyclists most likely learned about it from marketing too.

That's the age old Hacker News fairy tale of the "fair and balanced reviews" approach to marketing.

Businesses don't need to advertise! We'll find their products and generate word of mouth! Yeah, I'm sure people who put their livelihood at risk by starting a new business are going to entirely trust that to happen.

Look, there's a lot of marketing scams. We know.

But until someone here stops whining for a minute and explains to me how they would start a business with nothing they would call "marketing" I'll keep being very dismissive of clueless engineers who could not sell something to save their lives but who happily work at fucking Google (or something that feeds off of it) and criticize whole disciplines they've never practiced or studied.

I am also glad you have something you like. But unless it's the only way you could have found it, it doesn't tell you much about the necessity of advertising.

As to magazines, I was not referring to the ads (something not all magazines have) but to the content.

In a world with ads, do some people learn about things through those ads? Yes, I never said otherwise. But my point is that in a world without ads, everybody would still learn about new products. Indeed, they might learn about them much faster without incumbents trying to manipulate the markets.

> I was not referring to the ads (something not all magazines have) but to the content.

I too was referring to the content. Most magazine content is influenced by marketing teams.

> But my point is that in a world without ads, everybody would still learn about new products.

And my counterpoint is, I'm not so sure. When you launch a new product, how is anyone supposed to find out about it without marketing? Marketing isn't just ads -- it's also product placement, reaching out to buyers for stores, reaching out to vendors, magazine writers, and lots of other non-ad activities.

I'm mainly talking about ads here, which is what you were celebrating. I agree there are other kinds of marketing. Many of which are much less manipulative.

And I already listed some ways that one could find new products without ads. You have listed some too. It looks like you're well on your way to imagining how a world could work without ads.

That DC Rainmaker blog sure looks like advertising. There's affiliate links, coupon codes, and even a custom ad platform [1]. I'm not suggesting it's a bad thing, but DC Rainmaker is most certainly "marketing".

[1]: https://www.dcrainmaker.com/advertise

It does sell advertising, but it is not advertising itself. Note that he also offers subscriptions. So it's basically a one-man magazine of the specialist reviews variety.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com