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What If We Made Advertising Illegal? (simone.org)

submitted 6 months ago by sundrei@lemmy.sdf.org to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world

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The idea feels like sci-fi because you're so used to it, imagining ads gone feels like asking to outlaw gravity. But humanity had been free of current forms of advertising for 99.9% of its existence. Word-of-mouth and community networks worked just fine. First-party websites and online communities would now improve on that.

The traditional argument pro-advertising—that it provides consumers with necessary information—hasn't been valid for decades.

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[–] thisorthatorwhatever@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

Ultimately some ads will become illegal as legit advertisers (large corps), get pissed off at all the dick pill ads mixed in with their content.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

There were ads in ancient Rome, just to show how deep the rot goes.

[–] WarlordSdocy@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

As much as I'd be down with this I don't see it happening considering no one wants to pay for the services they use that are ad supported. For example everyone always seems to shit on YouTube premium but that is a currently existing way to get rid of ads on the service. Every time there's an option between ad supported and ad free but paid people tend to just pick ad free. So while I think outlawing ads would be good at least with the current state of the world it would only be a net negative, killing off a bunch of small and big websites that rely on ads.

[–] Limonene@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Youtube spends a tiny fraction of its revenue on bandwidth. It gets way more than it needs from ads and premium subscriptions. Hardly any of that revenue goes to the content creators either.

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[–] Owlboi@lemm.ee 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

considering tons of free services are paid for with advertising, a lot of such services would cease to exist/be free.

be it websites such as youtube and streaming sites like twitch, or almost any website for that matter.

someone made a brand of water thats free and is entirely paid by advertising printed on the bottle, that would be gone too.

hell, i hate ads, but considering i use ublock, i havent seen any in years, and in real life you can just not look at them.

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[–] conicalscientist@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Those who take issue with loss of profits without ads must take it up with big tech. They've have literal trillions of dollars from dominating the ad industry. They have your money. Nobody else.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I am kinda for it, but kinda against it because I like this 35% off coupon for weed in the bay area I get in the local ad magazine. I save so much fucking money with that coupon I love it

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