Comment by BiteCode_dev | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BiteCode_dev | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

That's considered a radical stance, but I +1.

Ads should just be banned anywhere in general.

They concentrate power to those who already have it, because you can make more ads if you have more money. The local burger joint cannot compete against macdonals on advertising, the local soda against coca cola.

It's ugly, eat attention, and interrupt.

It creates business models with terrible incentives, which leads to censorship in medias, quantity over quality, attention driven content, etc.

It encourages mass surveillance, and is used to influence society in the worse ways, making it dangerous to democracy.

Finally, if you remove ads, suddenly you get a much better filter for things: if people don't think it's worth even a little bit of money, let it die. It was not worth it.

Besides, even if you pay, you still see ads. You see submarine articles in paid newspaper, ads before your movies in the theater, ads in your bus ride...

Can you imagine, all this ads money, now free to be invested in something else?

> That’s considered a radical stance

I don’t think so. I think business wants us to feel that way, while the average person would choose to not hear/watch/see ads given the choice. I’m not necessarily against advertising, and regardless it’s a fact that advertising drives our economy and as a whole we generally don’t know how to create and conduct business without advertising. But I am against the notion that not wanting ads is a radical stance. I think we do need to prevent that notion from being normalized. Business doesn’t get to expect me to watch ads or make me feel guilty or like a freak for not wanting them. They have to work for it.

I say this as someone who has run a business and had to do advertising, and as someone who has never worked for a company or organization that doesn’t advertise.

> it’s a fact that advertising drives our economy

Is it really though? I could believe that advertising does incentivize people to buy things that they otherwise might not. But OTOH, if there were no advertising, people would still spend money, just differently. It's not as though people are going to start lighting money on fire in the absence of advertising.

I think so, in part. To be clear I’m not claiming it’s the only driver, nor the largest, but it’s undeniably large nonetheless. Consider that Google’s entire search existence is funded by ads, and there’s loads of competition. Basically all of TV and a lot of online streaming is ad funded. Magazines and radio and print media all get large portions of revenue via ads.

I agree people would still spend money in a world without ads, but we don’t currently have that world, right?

The things you mention are media, and that world is heavily loaded with advertising.

Other industries have it but it isn’t attention whoring trash, it’s more subtle. The free coffee at a conference, the rep dropping by to say hello. The brand name on the pens.

The strong views against advertising are a very logical reaction to the obnoxious methods used.

Yep totally agree. This is part of why I’m not against all advertising, and you’re also highlighting reasons why we shouldn’t allow being against the invasive media ads to be framed as or considered to be a radical stance.

> They concentrate power to those who already have it

Isn't ads exactly the opposite. A big company could preserve its brand even without ads, while a small company can't build a brand without ads.

But I completely agree on removing wall ads. Its ugly.

I think big companies do constantly need to remind people of their brand with ads to preserve it. That's why you see Coca-Cola ads everywhere, despite everyone already knowing who they are and what they sell.

Absolutely, it is all about maintaining mind share rather than letting the product speak for itself.

If you remove the ads, suddenly, it evens the playing field. They have to compete with the product, not the brand. With what they bring to people, not the image they can create with money. With producing for society, not rent seeking.

Plenty of businesses would die without ads, they would be naturally selected out of people lives because without the brain washing, they are just not that important enough.

>If you remove the ads, suddenly, it evens the playing field. They have to compete with the product, not the brand.

Well, you at least levelled one of the playing fields (while also removing a huge eyesore, which I really like!). I think the business deals in the background play a very large role too, if not bigger than the advertisements themselves. By business deals I mean that many restaurants exclusively serve the coke or pepsi family of drinks. This won't change if we remove the ads, only strengthen, and the larger players have a bigger weight, so the field is still very tilted.

That plenty of businesses would die without ads, I completely agree. There's an entire business model of running a bunch of ads, selling a bunch of crap, then disappearing. I would say good riddance to these.

I think you're right, ads can be the opposite! For example the way Facebook does its targeting, smaller businesses seem to have a real chance to target their niche. So it's not all just like a sporting event, where the big dogs will buy up all available ad space.

You used the keyword, "niche".

But most businesses are not niche, that's why it's called a niche.

People sell food, clothes, accommodations, services.

You can't fight wall-mart on general food or nike on shoes, or any big player on phones.

If you create a new tech product, your only chance is to go reddit, HN, etc, like the pine phone. Because you can't advertise it like apple with the iphone.

You can't buy product placement in movies and video games, you can't be at every bus stop.

So sure, if you sell biodegradable bamboo socks, your ads can do something.

But that's not 99% of what are sold in the world.

What is really sold is transparent to people, because they are so used to it. They don't realize they have maybe 3 choices of providers because all those brands belong to the same big super company. And each of them have their own dedicated marketing department.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com