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I don't see why it's hard to see the line. Real benefits are real. If Gadget X is easy to read and light, it's easy to read and light.

Imaginary benefits are imaginary. If you buy Gadget X you will not instantly become attractive to the opposite sex, nor will you be the envy of your friends.

The line is where you shift the emphasis from real benefits to imaginary social, emotional psychological, and sexual - i.e. lifestyle - boosts that the product can't possibly provide.

There is no clear dividing line because lifestyle enhancement isn't imaginary. If you brush your teeth, dress well etc, it actually does improve your sex appeal. So does being able to signal a good income by having certain goods, like a nice car.

Homeless men (granted, an extreme example) aren't seeing a lot of action. From what I gather, not owning a car as a man in the US is a serious barrier to having a romantic life. Etc.

Sure, some things are pretty ridiculous. But lifestyle enhancements that impact your love life are not simply imaginary. They can be quite real and tangible.

That's part of why it is tricky. If studies show owning a nice car helps a man's love life, is it outright lying to imply the connection by having some gorgeous woman lay across the hood of the car you are promoting?

That connection is not purely made up, though it may well be an exaggeration in some sense.

The clear dividing line is when you feel bad for doing it. But money. So people do it anyway.

I've idealistically written useful information on multiple websites for years and years. People have gushed at me about the wonderfulness of my writing and how it enhances their life, but they mostly don't want to pay me.

Even before the ad blocker wars tanked online advertising generally, the HN crowd used ad blockers more aggressively than most other traffic to my sites. People on HN also routinely post some means to get past paywalls for articles posted here.

I wrote this piece in January: https://raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-hand-li...

It took me about two weeks to write it. I have about six years college and years of experience pertinent to the topic, plus years of experience writing for pay.

It has gotten more than 60k page views. It did fairly well on the front page of HN.

It did not make me one thin dime.

I've talked about this on HN for years. I was actually homeless when I began doing product descriptions et al for pay. Every time I comment on this problem space, I get told "quit you're whining and get a real job."

This is not just about me. Local papers are folding left and right, etc. It's an industry wide problem.

The world seems to want high quality writing completely for free with zero means for the creators to pay their bills.

I generally like the writing I do for pay. But even if I didn't, I would have zero moral qualms about it. It isn't like anyone gave a damn about me being homeless and unable to afford a meal at times while they read my writing for free and sometimes cooed about it being good writing while simultaneously telling me to STFU about my problems, which were not their problem.

I would love to have my Patreon well funded so I can write fewer product descriptions and write more stuff like the above piece. But the world simply doesn't want to pay me for that.

I do have clients who love my product reviews. That's how I'm currently keeping food on the table.

People who de facto expect good writing to be done by unpaid slave labor are not people in any position to make me feel bad about writing product descriptions. That's a laugh.

> Most people aren't going to see specs concerning screen size and mentally translate that to "Woah, this will make my life easier because it will be more readable than the dinky thing I currently use."

This sentence really hurts my head, especially because I think you are right. In my mind, it is equivalent to being chased by a leopard, and not taking your knife out of your pocket because there's no one there to remind you that knives are pointy and can stab things. I dislike advertising that tells me suggestions rather than specifications; it keeps me from being able to decide if the product will work for the use cases I need it for. I don't think I'll ever understand why that works so well on people.

But what if you are encountering an alien life form from another planet? How will you know if it's basically like a leopard, in spite of being purple with green stripes, so stabby thing it is? Or maybe it's friendly and stabbing it would start an intergalactic war because it's actually a visiting diplomat.

It's my job to give such clues to the clueless. (Not intended to call anyone stupid. I used to routinely ask for clues for the clueless when asking questions for myself online and self identifyng as the clueless on topics where I lacked expertise.)

I think you took a personal opinion based on the way I see the world and turned it into a what-if hyperbole contest. But again, opinion, and not worth killing the conversation over, just a tactic used in poor taste.

I would prefer to make my own judgements. There's a better chance that I know enough about physics and biology and have a relevant understanding of the situation that I'm currently in, than the chance that someone else has all of those things and is paying as much attention to my situation as I am, has no agenda conflicting with mine, and chooses not to lie to me for any unknown number of reasons.

For what reason would I be unable to take a ruler, measure the screen of my current device, subtract that number from 7, and use the outcome to decide whether or not the device you are selling will have better visibility? It would take, maybe 4 seconds. I could even estimate it within an inch if no ruler was available. What clue can you offer that I could not deduce for myself given base information, and additionally make a better deduction, because you don't know that I'm colorblind and nearsighted. You simply aren't in a good position to offer me a clue.

Edit: I think that last sentence sums up why I dislike advertisements, but let me add an addendum: advertisements tend to offer me stories to distract me from the facts. I do not seek distraction. I want to understand the facts, and use the product to create my own story, for myself, because it will be more genuine than what is advertised to me, because it will be true, and be real, and be rewarding.

> It's much more genuinely helpful to tell people something like "You can easily read our large screen even in bright sunlight."

I don't know about that. Years of being exposed to advertising has taught me that squishy claims like that are almost certainly misleading.

It's harder to skirt truth in advertising laws when you're stating objective facts, but it's trivial when making squishy "experience" claims.

Do you not naturally do the same thing in your own life? If you're hanging out with some friends and want to recommend a certain drink or food, do you say something like "Oh my god, you've gotta try this, it taste so good," or do you pick up the packaging and read off some of the ingredients list and nutritional facts? Would you first say some cookies should be tried because they're "delicious," or that they are worth trying because of the measurements and other particular properties? Or, going to the extreme, would you say I should try something because of certain gustatory and digestive processes afforded therefrom, which create a positively stimulating sensation, as transmitted by the parietal lobe of the cerebral cortex?

For a long list of reasons that aren't especially pertinent to this discussion, no, I basically don't ever tell anyone in my personal life "Oh my God, you've gotta try this, it's so good."

I'm happy to talk to people in an informational way about a lot of things, but I basically think it is unconscionably rude to try to essentially dictate food choices or similar to anyone for any reason at any time or otherwise put them on the spot where they might need to turn me down and then have to wrestle with whether or not to divulge medical information or other personal info that I might not yet be privy to.

I do this in part because there is a long history of me just making small talk and, to my horror, people jumping on it like it was excellent advice and it going weird, weird places.

I've wrestled a lot with the question of "where does good communication end and manipulation begin?" precisely because I place a high value on self determination and respecting boundaries, yet have all too often had people react to my words as if I were trying to make them do X. It's often not only weird, but also some manner of train wreck.

I knew a woman going through a divorce who was feeling old and ugly etc. I casually joked that the cure for that was a younger lover. My real point was "Oh, don't let your ex make you feel that way. His opinions no longer count." But the next thing I knew, she had a younger boyfriend.

We weren't even friends. We were casual acquaintances and she treated me terribly every step of the way, which just added to the WTF?? factor.

I bring those same rubrics to my paid writing, so I try to be very informational and explain what x product is good for and who might want it and why. But I'm very clear that if I do that well, there are people who will find my words compelling and promptly jump on it.

I sincerely believe you simply cannot neatly and cleanly distinguish powerful and effective communication from intentional manipulation. If I make the case strongly and effectively enough that this is good for x, there will be people who will jump on that without further thought.

That works if there is a single source from where people learn about your product. If you product is popular enough someone else will simply make a nice table comparing your 7" screen with your competitions 8" and 9" screens.

And that may well be your competitor, whose goal is no more high minded than yours: promoting their own products.

And if it's me, I will probably be paid to tell you why you might want to buy each product listed.

Obviously, the 7" model is portable, no frills, fits standard pockets and you will appreciate it if you need a space saving model or are buying on a budget.

The 9" has all the bells and whistles, is a premium product and well worth the money, if you can afford it.

Touche!