Don't underestimate the economic loss caused by people just not knowing there's a better way.
Real world advertising is not about informing, it's about convincing. Over time, it became increasingly manipulative and dishonest. It also became more effective. In the process, it grew to consume a significant amount of resources of every company on the planet.
There's a huge difference between informational advertising, which I support, and manipulative advertising, which is reprehensible. Telling people that their custom CRUD app could be ready quicker, cheaper to support, and contain fewer bugs if they used your product is great. Bombarding people who already know about your product and its half dozen competitors with subconscious messages that your competitors are evil and that if they use your product their sex appeal will increase is dishonest and stupid.
I work at an organization that does almost no marketing; we mostly spread by word of mouth. We have no shortage of customers or work, and growth would be harmful to the quality of our product, so we're pretty content with our place in the market.
The good old survival bias. You did it thus it's possible for all!
Sadly the truth is, word of mouth doesn't always work, you are just lucky.
> don't pretend they'd survive without ads
I don't see why Facebook and Google couldn't work with a non-advertising-based business model. You might end up having to actually pay a little bit for it, though.
> In real world public spaces? That's an even more toxic form of advertising and far more wasteful.
And it's already saturated. This needs to go too.
> Trade shows, product catalogs, storefronts, and their on-line equivalents.
These are all advertisements, just a different type.
Yes. That difference of type is what makes them ethical and not annoying.
How old are you? I'm from the 90's, I'm from the generation that was on MSN all the time. My parent would have never let me pay for anything online, with no access to credit cards...
There's no ways they would have paid 5$ a month for a social networks, even if "all my friends were on it", which wouldn't be true, just like Runescape in the past.
I didn't mention it in the article, but I do recognize what you said as about the only redeeming thing about advertising on the Internet. Free content is a huge boon not just for the less wealthy, but for kids. I do not have a good idea how we could get rid of ads on-line while not excluding these demographics at the same time. I was kind of hoping someone on HN would have some ideas, but nothing turned up so far.
The waste you speak of sounds the result of misjudging demand rather than spamming too little. Or maybe people were informed about the merits of your better mousetrap, but just didn't care. Startups often guzzle that kool-aid.
Advertising is the last place I'd go to learn if someone's novelty is better. Who trusts ads?
There's also a time and place for ads, and the article's examples (like actual medical documents) are neither.