This is the second advertising post I've seen on lemmy and they were both today. I'm wondering how other people feel about it or if they've even seen posts like this?
Personally I'm livid and hate seeing it here. One of the things that attracts me to lemmy is the donation based, volunteer run, distributed, open access nature of it. I don't want it to become profit driven and I really don't want to see companies in what I belive should be a purely social endeavour. I really think making it profit driven will ruin it, if that means it stays smaller then I'm okay with that.
Now I know I can block them and move on which is what I've done. I'm also pleased to say that both posts I saw were heavily downvoted and I did my part too.
I'm curious if other people agree with me and don't want advertising like this on lemmy? Also, what do people think we can actually do about it if we don't want it around? Petition instance admins to ban advertising accounts? Then how do we define one? Can anything actually be done or do I just have to block and move on from a possibly ever increasing flow of advertising until I get bored and move on?
Sorry for the long rambling post and thanks if you read this far.
I like the way /r/3DPrinting handled ads. Their mods put it like this,
"It's okay for a Redditor to have a business and share it. It's not okay for a business to have a Reddit account and do the same."
Basically, does that account contribute to the community outside of their business? If so, I don't take issue with it.
That distinction is so minor it's useless. I block all people who post dumb shit, regardless of whether they're a business or not.
At least there are no "sponsored" posts that can't be blocked or downvoted. That's the real problem. If Taco Bell wants to post "dank memes", let them. Just don't sticky the post so it survives based on the voting. I block the meme communities anyway.
That's fine, but if someone is making something actually interesting for a community I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be able to share it, provided that's not the only reason they're around. That gets harder to moderate, but if we're talking "perfect world", that's what I would want.
I think when redittors give a product as a solution to a genuine problem asked about in the forums, (like use xyz software to handle your abc issue), that's an advertisement as well and one we can all agree with having.
Maybe, and that's a very distant maybe, if you have a solution that you know would interest people in a specific group, (like some car part deal in a car enthusiastic group), that can be put out there.
In any case, the general courtesy of mentioning your use case (owner, developer or just a user) of the product should be followed.
See, I'm okay with a business having an account and offering assistance. They should not advertise or proselytize, though I think a basic announcement of a new product is in a gray area.
But how can you trust that their advice or assistance is genuine and not just subtle marketing?
I mean, it fixes the problem someone asks about or it doesn't. If the ownership is transparent I don't see much issue. If you ask a question about the print speed of PLA+ at 205C on a PrusaXL and @BambuOfficial replies that it's 200mm/s (and it's wrong) but their Carbon prints at 500mm/s, then they get DV'ed and the mod determines if they're being a little bitch about things. Its a bit like open source - if there's enough eyes and enough participation, someone will note the correction and flag the post as malicious/advertising/assholerly.
If @JosefPrusa replies that it's 250mm/s currently and the next firmware that is getting released in a month will include adaptive heat profiling for 275mm/s, that's both useful information and marketing...and probably a welcome official response from a manufacturer.
You could take that to a logical extreme and have companies providing valid product solutions to user problems, while conveniently making it seem like their product is the best choice or deal, while purposefully obfuscating or omitting other products that are actually a better choice, or even just a better choice depending on the user.
Ideally, a neutral user involved in the industry or hobby being asked about would offer general best purchasing advice based on their experience through a willingness to help people like them.
A company would have an extremely apparent incentive to only promote their products, and perhaps even leave out potential issues or caveats with their products since it'd reduce likelihood of a sale.
Again, this is all worst case, and not to say that doesn't already happen by concealing the company rep behind a seemingly anonymous user account, but allowing companies to dilute advice with monetary incentives seems a slippery slope.
I should've just not typed all of this and said: conflict of interest
I do see your point, but I can also see how the account could be used to manipulate the consumer too, which makes me wary.
That's a great example of a business taking part in the community. If they go out of their way to be helpful like that, which costs the money, I'm okay with them trying to recoup a little bit through the goodwill they put in.