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What If We Made Advertising Illegal? (simone.org)

submitted 4 months ago by sundrei@lemmy.sdf.org to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world

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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.

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[–] Soup@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

I’ve found many wonderful products through advertising that I never would have otherwise. So many small businesses would have to be able to show off their products to new customers somehow.

It’s easy enough* to restrict advertising, there’s no need to throw the baby out with the bath water.

*we’ve done it before, we can do it again, and if we aren’t smart enough to figure it out then we deserve this bullshit honestly.