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Comment by bnralt | Hacker News Reader

One big source of evidence is that people go out of their way to avoid ads. Companies know this, and often give users an option to pay extra for ad-free versions of their products. I can think of many premium products that where being ad free is a selling point; I can think of _any_ premium product where additional advertisements were a selling point, and the idea is probably laughable to people.

I've never seen anyone say their quality of life is worse with fewer advertisements; it's almost always the opposite is true.

All behavior evidence points to people viewing advertisements as something detrimental, and this detrimental behavior consumes an enormous amount of our society's resources. I can't see how we can view advertising in any way but as a net negative for society.

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Evidence for your position: people pay for newspapers and magazines, and pay more for newspapers and magazines without advertising; indeed, the newspapers and magazines with less or no advertising charge less.

Also evidence for your position: the Computer Shopper (US, not UK) eventually bulked up to 1000 pages per month, almost all of which were advertisements by computer companies -- PC builders, parts suppliers, manufacturers, and so forth. But what it did was act as a catalog for all those companies, because you couldn't find them on the web back then. You can track the page count decline against the advent of ubiquitous Internet.

I think it needs to be emphasised that advertising in one of the catalogue magazines and even the classified section of many specialist mags is very different to most of the advertising on the internet today.

Those ad's were informative for those who were looking to see what services or products were available. Little or no possibility of creating demand where it did not exist. Internet ads are almost universally designed not only to create demand for a product, but also to feed the fear of exclusion if the viewer does not have the product.

> One big source of evidence is that people go out of their way to avoid ads.

Not really, or actually people hate excessive in-your-face advertising which unfortunately is the dominant form now online, but at the same time the loss in paper-based and other "traditional" advertising has plateaued, even during these times. In other words, there's indeed a tolerance point for most people for advertising, the online ad market however definitely crossed the line for a lot of people.

It's not just online. For instance, Hulu's ad-free subscription cost is almost twice that of it's regular cost. This isn't a new phenomenon either; here's a song advertising a paid TV service from the 1960's that list no advertisements as one of the reasons to pay for the service[1]. If you go to the SiriusXM radio site right now, you'll see that they advertise it being ad-free.

When people are paying extra to avoid something, it's a clear sign that they see it as detrimental.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcDUttzlKLU

> This isn't a new phenomenon either; here's a song advertising a paid TV service from the 1960's that list no advertisements as one of the reasons to pay for the service.

And how many have actually bothered to? The problem is that you're treating it as a black-and-white thing which is not true at all. It is true that there's a percentage of people who do prefer advertising, 17% in current online advertising (which shows that majority hate online advertising) and 54% in traditional advertising (both are for the US only, data tend to fluctuate but in general this holds nearly everywhere but Asia where they tend to view advertising as more favourable).

There is, of course, a balance where the majority of people will be fine. For example, European television and radio stations do have limits on advertising: it definitely helped a lot that it allowed them to know what new services and products are available. Coincidently, they have strong consumer protection - lies in advertising are actively patrolled and most people do get angry when the advertisement is misleading. Unfortunately, the US - which tends to have low-quality, clickbaity commercials - never saw a better alternative, and concluded that all advertising is bad. I'm not surprised that there's a backlash against advertising - they indeed lost the trust in people. Unfortunately, the American model served as the global model online, so here we are.

We have premium subscriptions that show that people value no advertising. I haven't ever seen any premium subscription that shows anyone values advertising. Have you ever seen any subscription that says the user will get more advertisements if they pay more? I think most people would view the concept as ridiculous.

Hulu could have two premium options, one where you pay more for no advertising, and another where you pay more for extra ads. If what you are saying is true, every company is leaving money on the table by ignoring this demographic. I think it's more likely that this demographic doesn't exist in any meaningful way.

> I haven't ever seen any premium subscription that shows anyone values advertising.

So you haven't touched industrial magazines. Explains everything.

Pre-internet, the way that you can actually get information in a field is to have a publisher collect advertisements from related companies and send it to you. That's beyond "hate", it's the opposite: you are interested in any offerings but are not sure of who will you go to.

This was covered earlier in the thread. Print buyers in certain markets - mostly technical - appreciated the catalog model.

This does not mean they would pay more for advertising.

There were markets - specifically classifieds and listings - where buyers did very much want to pay for ads. But those were very specialised, and it's debatable whether a personal sales listing (dating notice, pet offer, etc) is in any way similar to a corporate ad.

Realistically, absolutely no one was going to pay for a version of Computer Shopper which had zero independent content and was just a giant ad directory.

Just as absolutely no one [1] will pay money to view a movie presentation made entirely of ads. Or watch a TV channel [2]. Or listen to a radio stream. Or view a web site.

[1] It's possible there are a few individuals who would do this, but clearly not enough to support a viable market.

[2] You might think Home Shopping Network, but HSN is free to air not pay to view.

Fortunately, now we do have the internet. And if I ever want or need something, I can research it myself on demand or ask my friends, rather than rely on advertisers wasting my valuable time and attention with their junk.

The tolerance point is near 0. Every time I install a pihole and uBlock for one of my relatives I always get a "Wow, that's way better!" response.

People tolerate it until they know they have an option.

I'm talking about advertising in general, you specifically focused on online advertising - which I agree that it's so blatant and obnoxious.

> In other words, there's indeed a tolerance point for most people for advertising, the online ad market however definitely crossed the line for a lot of people.

I would further hypothesize that the number is broadly near 0 for any broadcast, propaganda-based advertising - TV, billboards, etc. I just don't have the ability to block those.

The kind of advertising people will readily tolerate is the kind you expose yourself to. E.g. Seeing a sign in a store window or a flyer for a show on a community bulletin board and going to look at it.

I enjoy seeing good ads between TV program, it's often entertaining and better then complete silence when you pause something to go grab something to eat or go to toilet or read some hacker news

There's indeed a tolerance point for most people for...pain. That doesn't make it desirable. Just the fact that you framed it with the world "tolerance" already implies a negative association.

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