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Comment by soco | Hacker News Reader

So basically the authorities outsourced a part of public safety to the ad companies?

It goes further than that. They outsourced public transportation to private companies and those private companies outsourced the busstops to ad companies. At least here the bus shelters are owned by ad companies.

Public lighting is still another topic, I thought. Because many things are done by private companies (most?) but still those are mandated to provide a certain quality of service.

Often the entire bus stops are financed by those advertising there. At least that has always been the argument against finally disallowing tobacco/smoking ads in Germany because then smaller communities would (allegedly) not be able to finance these things.

So they could not get any other advertiser blurb on those panels? Difficult to believe.

I'm sure that some communes might struggle paying for something that's been paid for by someone else in the past but the argument really lacks if it's used to justify keeping tobacco ads around.

Like you said, other advertisers would probably happily replace them and even if that's not the case I think a country as wealthy as Germany should be able to find some way to finance bus stops ;-)

Pretty much. The article says that the contracts require the lighting so that the area is illuminated. I'm gonna guess, however, that they wouldn't keep up the lighting if it weren't required.

Which really isn't so surprising, considering how pervasive advertising is in many societies.

Agree, the contracts require the lighting, not the advertising.

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