this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2025
1420 points (98.1% liked)

Mildly Interesting

20039 readers
702 users here now

This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.

This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?

Just post some stuff and don't spam.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
marcar@lemmy.world
WhatsHerBucket@lemmy.world
Jimbabwe@lemmy.ml
1420
What If We Made Advertising Illegal? (simone.org)
submitted 2 weeks ago by sundrei@lemmy.sdf.org to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world
390 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

The idea feels like sci-fi because you're so used to it, imagining ads gone feels like asking to outlaw gravity. But humanity had been free of current forms of advertising for 99.9% of its existence. Word-of-mouth and community networks worked just fine. First-party websites and online communities would now improve on that.

The traditional argument pro-advertising—that it provides consumers with necessary information—hasn't been valid for decades.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] DrSteveBrule@mander.xyz 3 points 2 weeks ago

I highly doubt most ads are being run at a loss. The whole point is to generate sales and increase revenue. If ads continue to persist then they are likely doing the job. Lemmy is overwhelmingly on the same page about how we feel about ads and adblockers, but the majority of the internet's users do not. IOS users don't have adblockers on their devices. Anyone who uses a chromium browser doesn't either. Most people really just don't care. I had a roommate that told me he actually likes having ads because he learns about products he didn't know he needed! My first thought was "if you don't know about it, you don't need it", but I really don't think most people think that way. There are a lot of subtle tricks advertisers use to get viewers to think of their products/services long after the ad was seen. I think most ads are very effective at making money.