I'd be in favor of significantly taxing advertising for the same reason that we levy "vice taxes" on booze, cigarettes, gambling, etc.

It would at the very least reduce the amount of it and select for advertising of a higher quality, cutting the noise a little.

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kimbernator 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I worry that such a tax would create a self-reinforcing monopolistic effect by making it harder for smaller companies to do it, thus enriching those that can afford to do it. Even if there's a threshold under which it's not taxed, it still benefits big corporations.

	▲	bediger4000 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's the benefit of just such a "Microsoft model": one throat to choke, as a manager once told me. A tightly regulated and taxed ad monopoly system would be a lot tamer, at least until it captures the regulators.

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_factor 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Taxation shouldn't be used to curb habits, that's what laws are for.

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MattGaiser 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Well, we have to balance that with advertising funding a ton of things that we otherwise value but would rather not pay for. Transit, free wifi, little leagues, etc.

	▲	morleytj 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The reason it pays for that is through redistribution though, right? If they weren't receiving a monetary benefit from advertising, they wouldn't run them, and the monetary benefit needs to be larger than the cost to fund those things, otherwise it wouldn't be cost-efficient to run it. By definition it shows an issue where we have a process that tricks human minds into thinking they aren't paying for something, when as a collective, we pay more for a worse service than we would have if it existed in a alternate framework.
	▲	ben_w 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Advertising either does or doesn't cause an increase in spending on whatever is advertised. If it does increase spending on things being advertised, the absence leaves us with more money for all those other things that are currently ad-supported. If it doesn't, it's a scam. If those things supported by ads would be literally unaffordable by the consumers if not for those ads, because the consumers are so poor they have no money to spend, the fork is still true; it's just that if those ads work then they push those already-poor consumers into debt for things they'd otherwise not buy because they couldn't afford, making them even poorer.
	▲	HWR_14 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		No, we don't. Transit is primarily funded by taxes, then fares and only then ads. Ad-free municipal wifi exists in a lot of places. Etc.
	▲	crote 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		How about we just tax companies, and give those things government subsidies? Same outcome, but without the ugly ads.
	▲	kerkeslager 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		The best transit systems don't have ads. I've never even used free wifi that was ad supported, and I'm not aware of a situation where this is common. Ad revenue is nowhere near enough to build the facilities necessary to play baseball, so little leagues are getting funding in a lot of other ways which could fill in the gaps if ad revenue were removed. The simple fact is that we have lots of examples of ads being removed and economies puttering along just fine.
	▲	venturecruelty 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		How did we have nice things that mutually benefit each other and society before advertising?