611

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.

(page 7) 49 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] sommerset@thelemmy.club 0 points 2 months ago

Tons of companies rely on ad revenue. Netflix, Google etc will go under.

load more comments (5 replies)
[-] intensely_human@lemm.ee 0 points 2 months ago

Then we’d have a centrally-planned economy I guess. I don’t really see how a free market would work without advertising.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Prime_Minister_Keyes@lemm.ee -1 points 2 months ago

It blew my mind when I read that snacking wasn't a thing until rather recently. In the past, there were three meals a day, if you were lucky.
Nowadays, we all are constantly told by advertising to "take a break" and stuff ourselves. Take a break from what? Sitting in an office chair? Who is really tilling the soil from dawn to dusk anymore? And then they wonder about the worldwide obesity epidemic. A big mystery, indeed.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] n7gifmdn@lemmy.ca -2 points 2 months ago

You'd put a lot of people out of work.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›
this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2025
611 points (97.5% liked)

Mildly Interesting

20998 readers
51 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