Hacker News Reader

Comment by idiotsecant | Hacker News Reader

'no ads in the public space' seems to me like one of those well-intentioned ideas that sounds good but has a lot of edge cases. What about if I am a plumber and I have my business logo on the side of my truck. Is that advertising? What if I have a sign in front of my shop? If someone really likes skittles and they mention that (unpaid) on a TV show is that advertising? What if skittles sends me some free skittles after, is it retroactively advertising now? What if I have a negative experience with one provider that ends up driving business to a different provider when I relay it. Is that advertising?

It seems like instead of starting from an overly broad position the best thing to do would be to start specifically. We could start by moving content online back into being protocol-based instead of walled gardens. Let me subscribe or not subscribe to whatever content I want without being beholden to a platform.

View on HN

This is a non-issue. There is a reason laws aren't written in one line.

The length of a law doesn’t reduce its murkiness - in fact it makes it more pronounced. That is why (in the common law systems) there is so much discussing and re-discussing of topics that plenty of other cases already covered, using new approach angles. If you make laws longer and more complex, you only make them serve more those that have the budget to explore all branches of the decision tree.

I mean, sure. Corruption exists. But the that's another issue entirely. Your comment doesn't add to the question of the GP - "does the existence of edge cases make implementing a law extremely difficult?" The answer is no. You could probably outline all the exceptions and applications of such a law in a few pages.

And if you did want to write it in close to one line, it wouldn't be particularly difficult either.

Simply outlaw _selling_ (or giving away) of ad space in public.

You want to put your own logo on your storefront, side of vehicle, brochure, public bus, charging station? Sure. You want to sell that space to the highest bidder to place their own ad? Nope.

This would eliminate 99% of billboards, bus stop ads, etc without creating any ambiguity as to whether a business is allowed to identify itself in public.

One caveat might be that it would be desirable to carve out an allowance for e.g. "10% of sales go to Charity X".

Good news! I now am a landlord whose sole property for lease is land upon which a sign can be placed. I also offer an unrelated sign building service and my friend offers a sign painting service!

That's great. Now you can advertise your sign building service on your property.

If we assume advertising is ROI positive, wouldn't this quickly become a world where only the biggest companies could advertise? Apple has a large retail footprint and could buy the physical billboard footprint; my local tax accountant cannot.

Most of these questions have easy answers in the implementations already out there:

* Set a maximum size on a sign. You can have a sign in front of your shop or on your car as long as it isn't larger than a well-defined square footage.

* If no one paid to have skittles mentioned, it's not advertising.

* Accepting and giving gifts in professional contexts is already known to be fraught, an anti-advertising law wouldn't significantly alter that.

* If the competitor paid you to share the negative experience or paid for the airtime/venue in which your shared it, it's advertising, otherwise it's not.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com