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Comment by stegosaurus | Hacker News Reader

What I worry about with all of this is the massive loss in productivity. As far as I'm concerned, there is a very clear externality here.

If I walk through a city center and I'm bombarded with unavoidable billboards, it's just not good for my brain. I don't want it, it's pollution, poison. I would love a real-life ad blocker for public transport, for example.

So what happens next? When do cities, local governments (London boroughs, say) start to care? Do they ever start to care that commutes, everyday lives of citizens are being destroyed (is there a clear enough causal link)?

Or do we have to wait until people like me start moving out of the city because they don't want to see bollocks flashing lights everywhere, they don't want to walk through a Minority Report like scene of pervasive unavoidable attention grabbers?

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There is one main counterexample that I know of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cidade_Limpa

I think you're being a bit melodramatic. Outdoor advertising is not intrusive or annoying at all when compared to other forms of advertising. It's not like I'm trying to watch a video or read a news article on the side of a bus, on a billboard or on top of a taxi.

Additionally, government transit organizations make money off of the advertising sold on their vehicles and property which can in turn be used to re-invest in infrastructure to benefit the average user. Things like digital signage and free Wi-Fi are sponsored by the advertisements and improve the various transit systems they are implemented in.

'When compared to other forms of advertising' is a cop out in my view.

Those other forms are generally avoidable with either zero cost, or a (debatable) net gain.

For example, one can simply choose to not watch broadcast TV, or read newspapers, preferring instead ad-free sources (which are generally better in my experience anyway).

I can't opt out of outdoor advertising without leaving employment opportunities behind or moving away from family and friends.

So that makes the baseline zero against something.

We have Piccadilly Circus/Times Square style moving LED billboards popping up in more and more places now with inane products on them. I don't want to look at pointless consumerist nonsense all day, I want to see life, not capitalism. If you think that's easy to just 'block' I suspect you're quite different to me.

Taking the LU as an example: there are ads above and in front of your head at all times, at stations (every minute) there are ads on the walls (which sometimes move), the escalators have moving LCD screens with advertising on them. Then you get outside and there's probably an advert in front of your face (because the station is a heavily trafficked area).

TV is no comparison! That's 10 minutes completely ad-free with a break that you can stand up and walk away from.

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