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Comment by endgame | Hacker News Reader

“Advertisement is the rich asking for more money. They disfigure their towns in order to decorate their houses.”

— G.K. Chesterton

The correct amount of advertising in a society is not zero - we all like finding out about things which will actually help us - but it is not unbounded either. The advertising machine acts according to its incentives, and will not rest until every spare surface, every quiet moment, every gap between thoughts is up for auction. It must therefore be restrained so that other uses of space can flourish.

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> “Advertisement is the rich asking for more money. They disfigure their towns in order to decorate their houses.”

> — G.K. Chesterton

> The correct amount of advertising in a society is not zero - we all like finding out about things which will actually help us - but it is not unbounded either. The advertising machine acts according to its incentives, and will not rest until every spare surface, every quiet moment, every gap between thoughts is up for auction. It must therefore be restrained so that other uses of space can flourish.

Wow. That was perhaps the most eloquent thing I've ever read on the hacker news. Thanks for posting it!

I don't think advertising is the right way to raise awareness about products and services - it is biased, untrustworthy and obtrusive. (Non-shill) reviews, word of mouth and other grassroots methods are both more effective and less obtrusive, the problem is if you've got a half baked product and you're burning money you need to ram your junk down people's throats RIGHT NOW or you'll go out of business, and thus advertising.

Pleased and surprised to see a Chesterton quote here!

I was thinking about flagging it, but I don't know why they posted it, so I won't.

Why would you flag it?

https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Chesterton%27s_Fence

Edit to say - he was making a joke, this will help you understand

I don't see how that makes it flag-worthy.

It's a very nuanced form of humor.

Ugh, not used to humor on HN haha.

Not to be too meta, but it's slightly more common these days than it was a decade ago I think. Likely impossible to avoid with the sheer growth of the place. That said, that kind of very smart humour has always been around here

Humor isn't disavowed on HN. We're allowed to crack a joke here and there. :)

Whoever downvoted you didn’t get the joke.

So you're sitting on the fence ...

I see what you did there.

https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/

I stole the quote and tried to pass if off as my own work to a pawn broker I know, but he said he'd already been offered the same quote by another author and since he wasn't sure of the origin of the quote he suggested I put it back till its provenance could be established: wouldn't you know, with my luck I had chosen Chesterton's fence.

> we all like finding out about things which will actually help us

That's pretty easy to achieve with a pull model rather than push though, especially with modern technical advances Chesterton couldn't have dreamed of (search and ubiquitous internet). Under the backdrop of restraining advertising except insofar as it offers a legitimate discovery service, given how easy it is to operate such a service, is it still reasonable to populate websites, billboards, and magazines with intrusions into unrelated aspects of life?

In my opinion it definitely is zero. Word of mouth is more than enough to learn of good new things.

That is a form of advertising.

I guess but not initiated by sales and marketing people trying to flog stuff I don't need, but actual satisfied customers who I can trust because they're my friends.

I'm against most advertising as well, but affiliate advertising is a very known thing. Consider MLMs as a model (a disgusting one at that) but friend-marketing is a thing.

Advertising that informs can be a net positive. Advertising that does anything else is a large waste of resources, IMHO.

that's a good point. i don't like advertising either. but friends trying to sell me stuff so they can make a living somehow feels worse. or imagine advertisements be replaced with door-to-door salespeople.

i think a good way would be more markets. imagine "market-day" on a tech conference. everyone at a conference who is selling services in a room sitting at a table, and you can walk up to them if we are looking for some service.

If you ban all other forms of advertising, you will get fake "friends" trying to sell you stuff. I suppose "influencers" and MLMs are existing versions of this, but they are rightly seen as tacky and parasocial. Do you really want to force all advertising down that route?

> is a form of advertising

In modern parlance, word of mouth is a form of marketing. Advertising is “an openly sponsored, non-personal message to promote or sell a product, service or idea” [1]. (Also, word of mouth has strong incumbency bias. The printing press was revolutionary for a reason.)

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising

I disagree with that definition. Webster's has the more common definition, of which the definition on wikipedia is a subset[0]:

> the action of calling something to the attention of the public especially by paid announcements

For example, this current comment advertises for Merriam-Webster's definition of advertising by calling attention to it.

[0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/advertising

> especially by paid announcements

There isn’t a single correct answer, because English. But in modern parlance, particularly in policy and commercial contexts, the paid part is key. “Word of mouth” encapsulates the difference: if they’re paid, they’re a spokesperson. If your friend pitching a product doesn’t disclose they’re paid, most would consider that dishonest.

What's the consequence if advertising is 0? An inefficient market? What's wrong with word of mouth?

Not just word of mouth - you can have review sites, things like consumer reports, store shelves, etc...

How would you make sure that those things don't become gamified and advertisement-riddled? Specifically review sites and similar.

"Advertisement is the lubricant of Capitalism" -- Me.

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