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Comment by benj111 | Hacker News Reader

So you are paying more than you should for a loaf of bread because your local shop is making a profit? because if you went to the factory you could buy the same loaf for less? Of course you could make the bread yourself for even less because the factory is making a profit, and grow the wheat yourself for even less because the farmer is making a profit.

You are not 'paying more than you should'. Not least because there is no price you 'should' be paying. Further I'm not sure how you imagine this working? The retailer gets to decide prices or not? They get to decide if they advertise or not? The advertiser's have competition? The retailers? Retailers are presumably choosing to advertise because they think it's worth it, thus it is? You are free to choose to buy those products, that will feed into their decision whether and how to advertise.

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That's a fallacy like the broken window fallacy.

In no way is the consumer helped here, in the end.

To make things worse, the consumer is nudged into buying more stuff and thus contributing to global overconsumption.

I'm not saying the consumer is helped.

I'm saying that all businesses aim to make money, so the fact that this one is doesn't make it morally wrong.

Further you've ascribed some price we 'should' be paying. There's no such thing, and you can't even say that prices would be lower without it. Tobacco companies haven't lowered prices in countries where advertising is banned.

>To make things worse, the consumer is nudged into buying more stuff and thus contributing to global overconsumption

A. Surely the consumer would have bought something else? Although gambling advertising is popular...

B. You are now contradicting yourself. You made the claim that advertising was essentially an economic dead weight. Now you're saying it contributes to over consumption. If advertising only puts up prices, that means we can buy less things than we would be able to.

C. This is assuming only bad things are advertised.

In summary. You're trying to make a quasi economic argument against advertising that isn't really correct. I have my own issues with advertising, so I'm not particularly defending it. But that doesn't excuse making up an argument that doesn't make much sense.

The entire problem is that you're looking at it from an economic perspective. From within that framework your reasoning might make sense, but that doesn't mean that with a different starting point it is still valid.

> A + B

No, because you can save money. And when you buy things not on a whim you might actually buy something that has lasting value as opposed to all the tons of cheap fashion people buy.

> C. This is assuming only bad things are advertised.

For good things, go to the yellow pages. I'm not against advertising. Just the forms where it is shoved in my face randomly instead of brought up when I am actively looking for something and want to be informed about products, and of course the forms that have user tracking.

The point of ads is generally to tempt you to make purchases where the alternative is having nothing. So the comparison I think is more like grocery stores putting junk food right in the checkout to try and have you buy some on impulse?

I'm pushing back against the argument that the advertiser make money, ergo we are paying more than we 'should'.

That's how businesses work. The shop makes money when you buy things, so surely the same argument should apply. Except it doesn't, because that is an acceptable business, so the argument isn't really an argument.

The advertiser loses money when you see ads. It makes money when you buy stuff, so it raises prices.

Or the advert increases sales, this paying for itself, and why the advertiser advertises in the first place.

Are you equating the shopkeeper across the street earning 15 an hour to sell me my loaf of bread to the advertisement industrial complex?

Why are we appealing to emotion?

Why a shopkeeper on 15 and hour and not Walmart?

Why the advertising industrial complex and not some small 1 man advertising firm?

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