To those who believe ads are evil and must be stopped, I ask how the world will work if we kill the freedom to sell space for commercial messages where people can see them.
I am furious about lots of the ads that I see. I want to stop certain kinds of advertising. I live where there are no billboards allowed and I love that.
But I want to live in a world where people can pay to have their messages displayed where they will be seen. Simply because banning that activity would cripple the flow of information. That’s what advertising is.
If you want to ban a particular form of advertising then say what and why. The “ban all ads” thing just doesn’t make sense.
> people can pay to have their messages displayed where they will be seen
…why? distribution of information is free across the world, which was not the case a century ago. let the message speak for itself
I ask again, what’s your actual argument against? you’ve seen things through ads you’ve liked? you think people should be allowed to pay to put their thumbs on the scale of the distribution of information? to what end?
I have a very broad idea of what ads are. Maybe you don’t. Say what you mean by paid ads.
Am I allowed to offer and accept compensation for boosting one message above others, or not? Would I be allowed to place a hyperlink on my site in exchange for a reciprocal hyperlink? That’s a clear example of compensated communication. That’s what I think ads are.
Imagine the ad police. “You blogged about a product. Someone said you sounded insincere. Let’s see the receipt for purchase. Can’t prove you bought it? Prove you weren’t compensated for your blog post or pay a fine.” Kafka land.
immediately to a fantasy slippery slope argument, cool!
your argument seems to boil down to paid ads being the lifeblood of the flow of information. my argument is it corrupts that flow of information, and we’d be better without them —- everything would operate just fine. individuals and organizations would have better incentives to share valuable information, not what they get paid to. obviously there would be plenty of details and edge cases to work out, as with any policy in the real world
I’m not going to write out policy in HackerNews comments and play that game with someone who jumps to the “imagine this crazy world where the police start arresting all of us over free speech!” as their explanation for what would go wrong
Since the US Federal Trade Commission can smoothly enforce the second of those two rules, what makes you think it cannot smoothly enforce an outright ban on ads? "Smoothly": you seem to have been unaware that the second of the rules I described existed, and you probably would have been aware if the enforcement had yielded anything deserving of the name "kafka land".
Newspapers have whole pages of bad ads, and random bad ads wedged between actual content. Ads have a perverse incentive to mimic the look of actual content, just like on the web. I'd never pick up a newspaper with a goal of "I want to find a tax service" and yet ads for such services are there, unwanted, wedged into other content.
But newspapers also have classified sections, a better kind of ad. They're in a predictable place, where you can go if you need a job.
Imagine if the actual content weren't perforated by a scattershot of ads. Ad revenue would go down, but readership would likely go up. Besides profit motives, it's also a case of the good of the many outweighing the good of the few.
I worry that innovators and small businesses won’t be able to get their message out efficiently. You won’t be able to display your message on anyone else’s property. You won’t be able to take any compensation for promoting anything.
Anything wie usually consider an ad/sponsored content/boosted content. That includes ad banners, video sponsors, boosted posts, billboards, etc. Really any way that a third party pays some organization to put certain content on their space (be it physical or digital) to be seen by people who are probably there for other reasons than to see that content.
An exact definition fortunately isn't necessary, since our legal system is well adapted to deal with terms that are difficult to define.
> Must all information be paid for by the audience?
Other monetization paths are still possible. E.g. some SaaS orgs could still run blogs to gain mind share, as they do now.
Hopefully most information will be paid for by the audience though.
> I worry that innovators and small businesses won’t be able to get their message out efficiently.
If ads are no longer a thing, people will find other means to get information.
You mentioned in another comment that you like ads in newspapers telling you about some local stores and events. If the readers are genuinely interested in this, the newspaper can still put that information there. Just instead of the highest bidder, they'll put the ones that are genuinely interesting.
Of course, if your product is not worth reading about, it will suddenly be much more difficult to promote it. In my opinion, that is a good thing.
I think the problem you have with ads is a you problem.
I agree that this would be a significant restriction on speech. I think it'd be worth it, especially since paying someone to show your opinion isn't necessary for political discourse, but I understand the caution.
> I think the problem you have with ads is a you problem.
That I very much disagree with.
Ads not just waste billions of dollars on producing content that is so bad you literally pay people to watch it, they also degrade the business model of large parts of the industry. Because of the ad-based business model, Google doesn't show you the best results, Meta tries to get you addicted, YouTube prevents you from swearing and discussing certain political content (a restriction on speech), everyone tries to track you, etc.
I believe that if all these companies' customers were their users, there would be a societal shift.