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Comment by ars | Hacker News Reader

> they've successfully gotten that information to me in other mediums

How nice for you - and even nicer for those places with large advertising budgets. But that is not the case for everyone. I don't need a huge billboard above a shop. But some ads that show what they do are quite helpful.

> "Campus Copy Shop"

So you suggest that all shops name themself as basically what they do? And what about a grocery store that has a copier? How would anyone find out about it unless they already go there?

> Their primary and most effective tool is, and always will be, positive word-of-mouth.

That's great when you live there, and an utter failure for visitors.

If I'm walking down a Manhattan street and I want to make a copy I'm looking for a picture of a copier or a sign that says "Copies made here".

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While I see your argument, I myself would enjoy a trip back in time where you would simply ask a local if they knew somewhere you could make a copy.

There's no getting around the fact that socializing with the locals is inconvenient, but sometimes it can be a nice inconvenience.

It has the added benefit that if your business pisses off the locals (crappy service perhaps) they'll probably recommend a competitor if there is one.

You must live in a very small town where locals actually know that. If you asked me where to make a copy in my neighborhood (much less city) I would have no idea.

Big stores don't really need much advertising - it's the small shops that need this, and it's exactly those smaller shops that would be less known to the locals.

I challenge the assumption that most of us wouldn't know where to make a copy in their neighbourhood, if such a service was available within a reasonable distance.

I live in Toronto, so not too small. I know my neighbourhood very well actually. If you bumped into me on the street I could tell you:

1) Where to make a copy (small independent office store nearby, but it's expensive, also where to find others).

2) Where to grab a coffee / baked goods with a recommendation of which one I prefer (none of them being Starbucks or a Tims).

3) Your options for Indian, Thai, Italian food, etc.

4) Grocery stores and the quality of their produce.

5) Local mechanics.

6) Parks.

7) Parking.

And plenty of more specific shops.

Most of these places are small independent shops. They really didn't need any signage since I've walked or driven past many of them multiple times.

I've only lived in this specific neighbourhood for a year and a half. I've lived in the city for about 15 years.

You may not know where to go to get a copy, but many of us do and not through any kind of superhuman effort either.

Also, having the internet on my phone means I can quickly find most services I need in a specific neighbourhood when I'm feeling too shy to ask.

> How nice for you - and even nicer for those places with large advertising budgets. But that is not the case for everyone. I don't need a huge billboard above a shop. But some ads that show what they do are quite helpful.

Quite helpful, for you. Useless, for me.

Neither of us should mistake our preferences for some kind of universal fact.

The public commons are a space that needs to be governed by the balancing of competing interests. Sao Paulo has evidently chosen to balance those interests in a way I would prefer given my preferences and needs, but you would not given yours.

The only thing that can be really said here is that you probably shouldn't move to Sao Paulo.

Did you really say "public commons"?? You understand we are talking about the window of a shop right? That's as far from the commons as you can get.

Actually, it's not. As far from the commons as one can get might be more like a heavily shielded, localized room in a remote area with no sound, light, or other effects going in or out except for some set of operators.

What is the sight one sees upon traveling through an area? A composite of many things, but including a large amount of the public faces of shops if there are any. Yet surely that sight has a considerable impact on the common areas.

You have an incredibly broad view of what "public commons" means.

I suppose you would also support legislation to regulate what color clothing people can wear if they go out in public?

Should shop keepers be required to have window shades on their stores so you are not offended by the display of merchandise?

Let me clarify: I didn't mean to say “this is directly part of the commons”. My main objection was to the idea that it was unambiguously not part of the commons (“as far from … as you can get”). I think that is incorrect because it is ambiguous: the physical world enforces more interference than you seem to imply.

I currently live in an area in which my window coverings are regulated to show an off-white color on the outside when closed, for what little that's worth. And almost all jurisdictions have some regulation on public clothing: public nudity is often punishable, for instance, thus excluding clothing with the color “invisibly transparent”. I neither directly support nor directly reject such laws, at the moment.

My best approximation of a “correct” solution might have involved upgrading everyone's perceptual filtering capability enough to obviate most commons regulations, but I've recently gone through a (possibly fake—I haven't stabilized the prionic meme filter yet) realization that humans are not at all what they seemed to me to be earlier on, and the inference propagation has not converged, so that shouldn't be treated as a stable opinion.

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