Comment by whacko_quacko | Hacker News Reader

Comment by whacko_quacko | Hacker News Reader

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Kudos for providing a somewhat sensible definition. This helps by addressing the free speech issues (at least to an extent^[1]), but I think there are other problems as well.

The economical fallout would be extensive. Google's and Meta's business model (and that of many others) would basically disappear overnight. While I'm not a fan of either, and think there should be much stricter regulation for (very large) tech-companies, this would make financing of a lot of important products infeasible. But not just in tech. Think about product placement in movies or television, banners in big sporting events etc. Who'd pay for that? The state? With whose money?

Also, it would make entering markets much harder, if you're not a household name already. If I read your definition correctly, you couldn't even give a complimentary account for your SaaS product to a reviewer ("by way of other agreement") to enable them to test your software (and hopefully write favorably about it if they're convinced). This would definitely hurt consumers.

I think you should be allowed to try to change minds. If anything, we should outlaw the massive tracking effort involved in advertising.

[1]: What about a political party publishing a newspaper and paying their staff? Is that okay? I could construct more examples, and life is even messier. On the other hand, I have to admit, that the focus on the payment aspect makes this much more palatable to me.

> The economical fallout would be extensive.

There was likely economic fallout many would call extensive when we mandated equal wages for minorities and an end to child labor, and yet businesses soldier on. Turns out, if you’re selling products people need, momentary disruptions and changing market conditions generally don’t mean you suddenly cannot conduct business.

> Think about product placement in movies or television, banners in big sporting events etc. Who'd pay for that? The state? With whose money?

One of sport fans biggest complaints is the overwhelming number of ads and the overbearing, bloated organizations behind pro tier sports. It seems like bankrupting a lot of them and letting teams return to public goods funded by municipalities would be a huge step forward into preserving sports as a social event, not a profit seeking venture.

And it’s not like pro sports aren’t already benefitting from taxpayers left and right. We could just get rid of the money men up top and let things settle where they may. Sure we may not get blockbuster sports events anymore, but maybe more people could then afford to actually attend?

> This would definitely hurt consumers.

Consumers LOATHE SaaS. They would cheer for it to be killed off.

> What about a political party publishing a newspaper and paying their staff?

I don’t see how that would run afoul of my definition?

> There was likely economic fallout many would call extensive when we mandated equal wages for minorities and an end to child labor, and yet businesses soldier on.

Advertising isn't child labor. If there was something immoral about telling people about your product, you'd have a point.

> It seems like bankrupting a lot of them and letting teams return to public goods funded by municipalities would be a huge step forward into preserving sports as a social event, not a profit seeking venture.

I disagree. I don't think the state has any place here. And profit seeking will not stop just because the source of the money changes and there's less of it.

> We could just get rid of the money men up top and let things settle where they may. Sure we may not get blockbuster sports events anymore, but maybe more people could then afford to actually attend?

If there's less money in it, there will be less supply, so I don't see how it would be easier for people to afford attendance.

Your local little league team couldn't even get a sponsorship for their uniforms anymore.

> Consumers LOATHE SaaS. They would cheer for it to be killed off.

SaaS was just an example for a new product trying to gain market share.

Also, right now they are free to not use SaaS products if they do hate the concept. Afterwards they're practically forced to not use it, because it's much harder to get one off the ground.

> I don’t see how that would run afoul of my definition?

Well, they're paying people to write positively about them and their product/politics. I can see it.

> Advertising isn't child labor. If there was something immoral about telling people about your product, you'd have a point.

It wasn't a moral argument, though I can see how you read it that way. I'm just saying, we change the market via regulation (or at least, used to) all the time, and businesses survive despite their endless moaning about it.

They complained about us not letting them keep cancer-causing chemicals in the break room too, mandatory break times for given lengths of work shifts, etc. etc. etc. They always whine about they'll go broke if they have to X or Y, no matter how reasonable it is.

> And profit seeking will not stop just because the source of the money changes and there's less of it.

State funded operations don't generally prioritize profits unless directed to by weird politicians who think public goods should make money, like the current head of the USPS. Generally, tax funded orgs are just us going "we would like this service, and everyone in the city/county/state/country chipping in like $30 a year means we don't need to worry about it.

> Your local little league team couldn't even get a sponsorship for their uniforms anymore.

Yeah, again. Fund it with taxes. Little league players shouldn't be billboards. If we want this stuff, we should have the political will to allocate money to pay for it. I don't see why if we decide we want little league baseball that said baseball team should then need to make the rounds in the community with a hat out. That's silly.

> Also, right now they are free to not use SaaS products if they do hate the concept.

No they aren't. If you want Microsoft Office, any Adobe product, Quickbooks, just to name a few, your only options are subscriptions to them.

> Well, they're paying people to write positively about them and their product/politics.

I mean just having a newsletter that advocates for socialism doesn't mean you're advertising socialism. It's propaganda, and that's fine. Propaganda isn't necessarily a bad thing despite the modern attitudes towards it. The pro-WWII ads that sold bonds were propaganda. The cartoons depicting Hitler as a buffoon were propaganda.

In any case though, I wouldn't consider that advertising. In my mind, advertising would only occur when a given publication is including content referencing a product or service where it would normally not otherwise be.

> I'm just saying, we change the market via regulation (or at least, used to) all the time, and businesses survive despite their endless moaning about it.

Ah, got it. Then I'd say we should only regulate things that need regulation. I don't think advertising is one of these. The data collection happening in the background on the other hand...

> State funded operations don't generally prioritize profits [...]

Yes, but people generally do, even when they're funded by government. They just lose the incentive to create a good product.

> Yeah, again. Fund [the local little league] with taxes.

No. Why should I pay for something like that?

> If you want Microsoft Office, any Adobe product, Quickbooks, just to name a few, your only options are subscriptions to them.

Yes. And there's LibreOffice, GIMP/Inkscape and GNUCash (and many others) if you don't like that model.

BTW, these aren't what I was thinking about. I assume big players would generally be favored by such a prohibition, because they're already known to a wide audience.

> I mean just having a newsletter that advocates for socialism doesn't mean you're advertising socialism. It's propaganda, and that's fine. Propaganda isn't necessarily a bad thing despite the modern attitudes towards it.

I agree with you, but the article explicitly lumps together propaganda and advertising. I think that's dangerous. Socialists should be free to make their case, even though I think it's idiotic

> The economical fallout would be extensive.

So is the fallout from Trump's new tariffs, yet they still got done.

I don't think the government cares about economic fallout unless it affects billionaires, so you're right, advertising will never be banned because it would cut into the profits of the president's richest and most vocal supporters.

Trump's tariffs are idiotic, and I'm against them. I don't see your point

My point is that US government economic policy is completely disconnected from the concept of economic fallout, so it seems silly to consider that a gating item for this hypothetical.

I read that as "the US government is already crippling the economy, so other measures potentially crippling the economy are not a problem," but maybe I'm misunderstanding you?

> My point is that US government economic policy is completely disconnected from the concept of economic fallout

Unless the economic policy stands to benefit the working class.

Tax cuts for billionaires will pass all day, with zero issues at all. Anything, and I do mean anything that stands to benefit the general public has to have three plans on how it will either pay for itself or otherwise be paid for, and if any of them involve even a slight tax increase, it will never even see a vote, let alone pass.

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