What if we banned all advertising? Not regulate it—abolish it. This proposal would transform manipulation machines, and maybe save democracy itself. A thought experiment worth considering.

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.

  • Owl@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    10 days ago

    considering tons of free services are paid for with advertising, a lot of such services would cease to exist/be free.

    be it websites such as youtube and streaming sites like twitch, or almost any website for that matter.

    someone made a brand of water thats free and is entirely paid by advertising printed on the bottle, that would be gone too.

    hell, i hate ads, but considering i use ublock, i havent seen any in years, and in real life you can just not look at them.

    • Sibbo@sopuli.xyz
      0·
      10 days ago

      I’m sure they would change their business model with some free watching hours to lure you in, and then once they become valuable to you, you have to pay to continue watching. Or something like that.