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.

  • Remember_the_tooth@lemmy.world
    0·
    10 days ago

    Thanks for the thorough comment. I’d say your assessment is accurate. As it is, McDonald’s is a real estate company that also sells hamburgers. Corporations are not waiting for advertisement to be banned before they do those things. They’ve been doing them for a while. We should ban advertisement. The dystopia arrived a while ago.