this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2025
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A Boring Dystopia
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Why does there still need to be advertisements though?
I'd completely ban marketing altogether. Their only purpose is to hack human brains in order to get them to buy stuff they otherwise wouldn't. They are the reason we have overconsumption.
Start with the example of the city of São Paulo, the 4th largest city in the world, which banned all outdoor advertising many years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cidade_Limpa
I think allowing print and physical media would enable using signs outside your building, use branding on your documents, etc. plus make it more valuable for the already dying media of print, and also pretty much make advertising an opt in situation since you can choose to engage in it, rather than having something like the fucking sphere blazed into your retina with the power of 15 suns in the middle of the night.
How would you even do that? Marketing is tied up into every single purchasing decision we make. The colors and fonts on the packaging; the perceived value or luxury of the store you're buying it from; the placement of the products within that store; the price of the product itself. All of these signal things about the perceived value of the product and influence what people purchase.
Banning "marketing" in general is impossible. In order for humans to survive, we need to acquire means of sustenance. With social division of labor, you cannot acquire all the means of sustenance you need by yourself or within your immediate community. As such, a market is necessary to exchange commodities, including means of sustenance and means of production, and the mere act of bringing a commodity to a market is, by definition, marketing.
Banning advertising in general is more possible, but probably a bad idea. Imagine you want to buy bread. How would you go about that? Look for a "bakery" sign? Whoops, that's advertising, can't have that. Your best bet then is, like, going into every single open door on the street until you find a bakery, which doesn't sound good at all.
What we should do is regulate advertising down to its minimum necessary function, which is helping people find what they are already looking for, plus maybe PSA type of ads (e.g. reminding you to get vaccinated and stuff). So yeah, most modern ads should be banned, but some should be kept because there is some actual use in them.
There are some things I want to know about that may or may not be considered advertising. Stuff like a band I like going on tour, or a video game I'm interested in releasing.
Maybe in your world those could just be like opt-in newsletters.