"You are the victim of a con — one so pernicious that you’ve likely tuned it out despite the fact it’s part of almost every part of your life. It hurts everybody you know in different ways, and it hurts people more based on their socioeconomic status. It pokes and prods and twists millions of little parts of your life, and it’s everywhere, so you have to ignore it, because complaining about it feels futile, like complaining about the weather."
"It isn’t. You’re battered by the Rot Economy, and a tech industry that has become so obsessed with growth that you, the paying customer, are a nuisance to be mitigated far more than a participant in an exchange of value. A death cult has taken over the markets, using software as a mechanism to extract value at scale in the pursuit of growth at the cost of user happiness."
To be clear: creating media for the purposes of spreading an idea is not inherently bad. What's bad is having an industry built around planting ideas in human minds, regardless of the validity or broad utility of those ideas.
And to head off "but then how will people learn about <PRODUCT>?" People buy marketing material, coupon books, attend conferences for the things they care about, and if necessary research options when they need something. A market does not need the feature of shoving information about available products and services in everyone's face to function well. And if you're someone who likes seeing ads, great, open up the yellow pages or digital equivalent and look at all the ads you want. How will ad-supported services like mass social-media sites fund themselves? Not my problem, maybe they don't and they shit down. What a shame.
But at least Ads i can avoid - the fucking software eating everything I can’t avoid unless I become a hermit.
Commercials are often annoying, sure. I like cable with a DVR because I can skip 100% of commercials and the stream can't make them unskippable. But there's no sense in overreacting to the general concept of advertising.
When I go on a date and a woman tells me about herself I understand she may be emphasizing the good and downplaying the bad. It does not make her evil. It's normal for anyone to do.
Essentially nobody is against a local pizza shop putting up a flyer. But most (almost all) ads are by companies like Coca-Cola, who simply want to beat you into submission to associate whatever it they want with their product.
Beach Summer Fun == Coca-Cola.
Childhood Wonder == Disney Resorts.
etc. etc.
You can form an opinion based on facts, but almost all advertising is not about presenting you facts to consider. Its about forming an impression for you.
To me the most sad part is that it's all worthless. If Pepsi does better than Coke, I DONT CARE. And yet, tens of thousands of our fellow citizens toil away hours every day to try to convince us one way or another. And in the process make the world uglier and more hostile.
To summarize this: advertising is a zero sum game. (In the few instances where it isn't, it's also a good thing).
Advertising does not make people excited, or happy, in general. The type that does (movie trailers, mostly) can stay.
In general, advertising makes people unhappy.
Think of the teenagers who see photoshoped, paper-thin fashion models and wish they were them. And then spend their money fruitlessly trying to be something that is impossible.
Think of the people convinced by advertising to invest in scams, or to gamble their money away.
This one gets me personally - I can't see a twix ad without wanting to buy a twix. And yet the world would be better if I didn't! They aren't healthy and I was perfectly happy before I saw the ad and then realized I needed one.
And in general they are UGLY. They demand your attention. There's a reason most people here use uBlock.
It is more like you go on your date, but the woman you go on a date with has no interest in you whatsoever. But she carefully documents your interests, your behavioral habits and shortcomings, along with information about your education, race, religion, age and salary. Then this person sells this to people who you don't want to date, but want to meet and exploit you.
This is why you get ads for timeshares, water filters or casinos that you don't want - but these people have money to put an ad in front of you.