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Comment by ajkjk | Hacker News Reader

I'm hoping we can mostly ban ads in my lifetime (on the basis that companies should not be allowed to freely try to manipulate unconsenting strangers. and that it makes the world suck to live in and we don't have to put up with that). Nothing would make me happier honestly.

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“If you accept the existence of advertising, you accept a system designed to persuade and to dominate minds by interfering in people's thinking patterns. You also accept that the system will be used by the sorts of people who like to influence people and are good at it. No person who did not wish to dominate others would choose to use advertising, or choosing it, succeed in it. So the basic nature of advertising and all technologies created to serve it will be consistent with this purpose, will encourage this behaviour in society, and will tend to push social evolution in this direction.” ― Jerry Mander, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television

Any leeway here for children’s bone cancer charities to separate them from Zuckgoogle_et.al._AdCorp?

Or OP: OP posted the link in good faith, not to interfere with my brain but to inform me. Reminder to brush your teeth = benevolent. Reminder wealthy people might be happy if they give a smidge of money this year to a good cause can be a check-in on whether we’re being holistically solid folks more than evidence of a desire for mental domination?

Maybe that thinking demands only word of mouth promotion, but not sure that roundly and uniquely beats videorecording a promotion and paying someone to play the video back for strangers.

(per my previous, zany, comment you can tell I’m on your side, as Jerry would hopefully see… he probably addressed my points above too in the full text)

Leeway to advertise in unrelated content? Nope.

yep, agreed. The problem is not "bone cancer charities must have a way of getting their message out!" therefore "they should be able to bug you about it while you're reading an article". The problem is that the things bugging you while reading an article is bad for your mind (and even worse if they are manipulative, which they are). If you get rid of these exploitable mediums for messaging, other mediums will appear which -- hopefully -- are more just and healthy. Particularly if they're things we value as society. And if some things we don't value die because invasive advertising was the only way they could survive? Fine.

> If you get rid of these exploitable mediums for messaging, other mediums will appear which -- hopefully -- are more just and healthy.

I like that! Would be hard to be absolutist (“never mention children’s cancer unless I ask directly, read a related article, or we’re friends”) but sure, can imagine a better way than today.

This would also mean a lot of currently "free" services becoming paid in some other fashion, which I think people would be equally up-in-arms about.

I'm no fan of ads and I am willing to pay for services I use to avoid seeing them - but I've learned over recent years that most people simply do not agree with that premise.

I'm fine with that. The revenue per user per month from ads is so small that the fee to use services wouldn't have to be that large.

And overall society would get cheaper and more efficient since all that budget allocated to advertising would vanish with no consequences. Advertising is mostly a zero sum game where you have to advertise to get ahead of the other businesses advertisements. If companies stopped getting in to bidding wars for the top place on google, all of that money could be freed up for something useful.

Sounds great. Ideally things are beholden to the value the process for the customer rather than to their ability to trick people into clicking on them (SEO optimization etc) in order to get money indirectly via ads. Some form of micropayments will be necessary to support independent sites, but that sounds great also. Anything to get rid of the perverse incentivizes of advertising.

I'd also like to see astroturfing / promoting things for money without disclosing it explicitly illegal. Again, anything to stop systematic manipulation.

But it will also mean that some actually free services that weren't able to compete with ad-supported ones because they don't have the marketing budget will be able to take over. I expect that to actually be the more common outcome for services that matter.

And the paid services that at some point do show ads?

Who's we? Politicians?

Well, the populace. But yeah presumably via politicians. It certainly might require winning a few elections.

Does that system actually work?

Yes.

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