Also: Companies need ads to grow because their competitors also have ads. That doesn't mean they'd need ads in if ads didn't exist.
The one legitimate purpose ads serve – could easily be served through other mechanisms, e.g. by the press. Maybe the press would have to expand but advertising isn't free either. In any case, an independent press is much more suitable to actually inform people than the ad industry which at best informs people by accident while trying to convince people to buy $PRODUCT.
Ads are like military: It's mostly necessary because it exists.
There's a big plumber app on the market already, but yours is way better.
How do you get plumbers to hear about your product?
1) The press? Uninterested. Plumber magazines or sites? Very low traffic - no way to scale.
2) Call or knock on doors of every plumber near you? If everyone did this, the spam would be unreal. Also inefficient and not scalable.
3) Referrals? You get some, but most plumbers aren't chomping at the bit to help their competitors. And because you started with so few, referrals are a snails pace and by no means exponential.
4) Organic postings and SEO? The big plumber app is way ahead of you. And 100 other worse apps clog up the listings. No one sees your posts.
See the problem? Without ads, you can't grow many many categories of genuinely valuable products. Even if no one else is advertising, you can't really grow without them.
This is barely a hypothetical by the way. I've worked with a dozen companies with similar situations.
Advertising is a waste money for quality products, only makes sense for inferior ones.
How would plumbers know about the app without advertising?
> Find any plumbing supplier [...] they'll tell their members at no-charge
In other words: They would advertise it.
It's quite clear we are talking about paid advertising, not the broader concept of people saying things.
This app currently has over 100 real reviews online, averaging 4.9 stars out of 5. Retention is nuts - 98% of people who ever started using the product (which has a monthly fee) are still using it. The company is three years old.
Perfect to take off, right? But few industries are actually viral. We just doubled the number of new customers per month using FB ads in the first two months of scaling it out, and we'll scale much further over the next 3.
Anyone who works in start-up growth will tell you the same things I am.
You can certainly pay for eyeballs, the question is whether FB ads are giving users with a retention level high enough to justify the advertising expense. Users from online ads tend to much lower quality than those that come from organic traffic, I would not expect your organic retention numbers to hold.
And yes, all ad spend should be measured against true LTV.
That means plumbers don't care about plumbing news, including your app. You have no right to disrespect their choice by spamming them anyway.
In a world without ads, not subscribing to plumbing news would be a weird choice anyway. Refusing to learn about new ways to increase productivity – like your app – means giving your competition an advantage.
> It cost you years of your time and lots of money to make this great app, and you need a lot of plumbers to buy it to afford to continue working on it.
Society does not owe you customers.
For the value part: What if plumbers use Facebook (which they do) and when they see your FB ad, they buy your product. Wouldnt that indicate they do care about your app?
Is being able to sell your stuff all you care about? Because that's the impression I'm getting. I'd summarize our discussion like this (exaggerating for effect):
> Ads damage democracy, make everyone unhappy, they're a huge drain on our economy and can be replaced by better methods of distributing information.
> But I get to sell a plumbing app.
This is currently done extensively, despite advertising existing. So this doesn't seem like a valid counterpoint.
You have heard of native advertising haven't you? Of course ethical journalists refuse to do this. They will still refuse when ordinary ads have been banned.
On the other hand, ads make the press less independent. No matter how much you try to avoid it: If someone buys ads in your publication they have influence over you. Be too critical of them and they'll withdraw their funding. They won't openly threaten you, of course, because that is not legal and not necessary.
Further, a proportion of the sale price funded the advertisement. Any product that has been advertised is necessarily overpriced.
Sentence 3 is also untrue. No advertising means people hear about much fewer brands, which means reduced competition, which means higher prices. This more or less balances out the cost of ads for the consumer.