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Comment by cyborgx7 | Hacker News Reader

>there's nothing inherently wrong with advertising in an academic sense.

There is so much wrong with advertising in an academic sense.

- They distort the product market as they favour those players with the highest marketing budget, rather than with the best product.

- They distort the media market as getting people to look in your direction is the only thing that has value. Clickbait and fake-news are a direct result of advertising, and wouldn't exist without it.

- They are an attempt at manipulation. People have to constantly expend the energy to counteract that manipulation. I also believe this to be a big factor in the decrease in trust in media. Since the stuff that is meant to inform you is always surrounded by stuff trying to manipulate you, how could you ever build trust to it?

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I'm talking about the basic principles of advertising. A simple sign in the street is advertising, as is a static graphic on a niche hobby website advertising products from a company people within that community respect. There's nothing wrong with letting people know your products exist. The problem is always in the execution.

> They distort the product market as they favour those players with the highest marketing budget, rather than with the best product.

I don't see any alternative to letting people make claims and making laws to stop them blatantly lying. What is the "best" product in any category? How does the best product surface in front of me without advertising in any context?

> Clickbait and fake-news are a direct result of advertising

Advertising is a part of it, sure, but it's not the whole picture.

> They are an attempt at manipulation. People have to constantly expend the energy to counteract that manipulation

100% agree, which is why I promote adblockers. But I don't think this is a problem with the principle of advertising, it's an execution problem. Like many others mention if a website had a small sidebar with static graphic ads that weren't invasive I wouldn't block them as they wouldn't be requiring me to expend energy to counteract them and I would still think it would be ethical to block them if someone wished to. It's never unethical to choose what code runs on my machine after being sent to me, if you don't want me to have free content then don't send me content for free.

I think we're mostly on the same page, I just don't have a problem with ads at the bottom end of the manipulation and annoyance scale.

>I don't see any alternative to letting people make claims and making laws to stop them blatantly lying. What is the "best" product in any category? How does the best product surface in front of me without advertising in any context?

Are you aware of the concept of independent product reviews that you can build trust to and seek out on your own if you are interested in them?

>Advertising is a part of it, sure, but it's not the whole picture.

There is no direct financial incentive for them without advertising.

A political actor might sponsor fake news, so it wouldn't disappear, but most of it gets made because it's a cheap way to generate highly engaging content that gets shared a lot.

> concept of independent product reviews

How did these original purchasers find out about these products in order to buy and review them? How do I know they aren't receiving products for free or more subtly being specific in what products they will or won't review in order to spin a narrative. I'm a big fan of good product reviews but this doesn't solve advertisings problems it just introduces new ones.

I'm not really sure how businesses survive in a world where they are not allowed to advertise their products or where they are located? It feels very artificially prescribed in how you think people should discover something.

Like you I don't even like ads, and I would rather not see them but I don't advocate for them not to be able to exist, just for my right to block them or in the real world for them to no intrude unnecessarily.

What solution do you envisage to the problem of ads as you see it? to ban them entirely?

>How did these original purchasers find out about these products in order to buy and review them?

Professional reviewers already find out directly fron the product creators. They want to be contacted by them and even seek out contact. This problem is already solved. In general, they certainly don't learn about products from advertising.

>How do I know they aren't receiving products for free or more subtly being specific in what products they will or won't review in order to spin a narrative. I'm a big fan of good product reviews but this doesn't solve advertisings problems it just introduces new ones.

I generally don't have a problem with professional reviewers recieving products for free to review them. If they get paid to push a certain product, while pretending they are a neutral source of information, I would consider this fraud.

>What solution do you envisage to the problem of ads as you see it? to ban them entirely?

Yes, I advocate banning advertising and I hope to contribute to support to put that measure into place.

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