What if we banned all advertising? Not regulate it—abolish it. This proposal would transform manipulation machines, and maybe save democracy itself. A thought experiment worth considering.

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.

    • L7HM77@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      7 hours ago

      All businesses would fail if they don’t evolve from the current structure.

      A new ecosystem would arise, and if it’s held stable long enough, it would become the new norm.

      It’s kinda like how news stations report on minimum wages in the US, “if we increase minimum wages, X% of small businesses will fail.” I try to single out and avoid businesses that operate that way, because the workers are miserable from the low pay, me as the consumer is miserable from the poor customer service, and the owner is miserable because he isn’t taking home ‘enough’ money, even though the business is net positive cash flow.

      Propping up the inefficient practices is holding everything back, if they’re pruned then new growth can take hold, and form new standards.

      • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        3 hours ago

        ok fascinating question mr scientist, how do you sell products to people who don’t know you exist.

        That’s literally the fundamental problem to solve here. If you want to argue for banning predatory advertising, sure, but you could also just install an ad blocker.

        “if we increase minimum wages, X% of small businesses will fail.” I try to single out and avoid businesses that operate that way, because the workers are miserable from the low pay, me as the consumer is miserable from the poor customer service, and the owner is miserable because he isn’t taking home ‘enough’ money, even though the business is net positive cash flow.

        in this case, the business fails, unless the business finds a way to pull in more total revenue, and pay their employees more, which gives them a better selection of employees, though it’s generally true that for a small business the largest capital cost is labor. So being able to pay yourself, and other employees where possible, less money saves you a lot of recurring cost. Especially if you don’t get consistent business.

        Propping up the inefficient practices is holding everything back, if they’re pruned then new growth can take hold, and form new standards.

        the problem here, is that you need a good model that indicates better complete performance of the new system, as opposed to the old system, nobody has an effective model economy for anything other than capitalism, because capitalism literally “just works” it has problems, sure, but you can fix them, or work on fixing them at least. A brand new economy may not be able to get off the ground in the first place, without failing completely.

        also to be clear, in most cases “net positive cashflow” isn’t a great spot to be in, what you want is consistent revenue high enough that you can pay off all of your expenses, consistently, i.e. “adjusted net positive cash flow”

        Sure you can get net positive cashflow from paying everybody less, but you would be better served by paying them more. That would incentivize them to do a better job, and prevent you from paying tax on that.