> So, we probably need to make ads prohibitively expensive, and legally risky, such that the volume of them decreases dramatically.

i.e. those with lots of money get a lot of ad time and no one else gets any. I can think of a number of ways why this is inadvisable, across multiple axes, social, economic, and political.

Society has a rudder. You couldn't claim a society exists _without_ one. It's a defining characteristic.

What society doesn't have is a _fast_ or particularly responsive rudder. It moves slow and hates capricious changes. It frustrates capital which wants to move quickly and change as often as is needed to derive greater profits.

They're not manipulating you for your own good. They're doing it for money.

If democracy is predicated on independent thought and decision (free speech, free vote), then the "rudder" in this analogy becomes authoritarianism with an additional step.

Except foreign powers can also control that rudder.

We could always allow opt-in advertising (“send me your monthly/weekly/whatever catalog”) and ban the unsolicited kind. This could extend to asking for things like trade magazines or email newsletters or what have you.

Useful kind preserved, evil kind squashed.

Usually the second type is called “brand advertising”. The idea is to create a positive association with a brand and not expect you to take any immediate action. The first type maybe “action advertising” (I’ve heard other terms).

Most advertising is actually the first type.

I have run hundreds of millions in advertising dollars for dozens of companies. The vast majority of ad spend is the former category.

There are two kinds of advertising. One kind slaps you in the face at the least expected moment. The other kind is like the yellow pages which you open whenever you need something.

Is the first kind of advertising useful? It seems like there are better ways to obtain that information, like, for example a search. The benefit being that I only am presented with that information if I actually need/want cantaloups

But now I want a cantaloupe and beforehand I didn't, and I'm slightly less happy and satisfied with this lack of cantaloupe that I now viscerally feel.

Whilst I'm at the grocery store is the appropriate time to work out that cantaloupe is an option.

Not in the middle of watching a cricket match.

> The first kind of advertising is useful.

What utility does the first sort of advertising have? At best it seems non-abusive, but it still clogs up our brains with crap we don't need and didn't ask for.

How about an ad (assuming an honest product, since this thread is clearly about ads as such) in a remote village saying "get a work visa to Europe/US, you could live like these people with higher living standards!"

People who were quite happy being subsistence farmers are now aware, or much more aware, of the possibility of higher living standards. Doesn't seem immoral to me. Why would a car ad be immoral then? Perhaps it will improve the average purchasers life? I say it someone who is quite happy with a 15yo Honda Fit :)

Currently I think it is difficult to argue that advertising in its most visible forms have any serious benefit to people looking to obtain a service.

How often does an actual random advertisement shown on a billboard or a preroll youtube ad actually lead to a quality product? I think it is fairly common for people who are acquiring the best versions of things to do so primarily through research in forums or reviews, which is coming from the user looking from the product, rather than the product forcing itself into the mind of a given user to convince them to consume it.

Word of mouth. If you make happy customers, they'll readily tell others.

But the truth is most modern products aren't good enough to earn word of mouth.

A good example of how to work it right is Steam: while it is not perfect, most discussions give them benefit of doubt because most of the time they do work for the best interest of their customers, not just themselves.

We replace push advertising (unsolicited messages) with pull systems (discoverability on demand).

Have you really never bought a product or service for some other reason than that you saw an ad for it?

People have plenty of other ways of finding out about useful products and services. You can talk to your friends and family, or go to a store and talk to a salesperson, or look up product reviews online, or even pay for something like a Consumer Reports subscription.

Certainly not through conventional advertising. There's heaps of billboards where I live, and I'd have a very hard time finding one for a shop/service/political party/business that hasn't been around for years.

Sounds like someone else's problem, mine is "I don't want to see your ads".

I believe that's the wrong angle to be looking at it since you're starting from the perspective of someone trying to sell something.

The 'need' end is the perspective that's most useful to society. How can someone who has a need find out to satisfy it?

Make your product able to be found by those who need it. Don't shove it in the faces of everyone.

One problem with the above is the effectiveness of making 'unnecessary' sales by creating fomo by shoving it in the faces of everyone. This effectiveness, however, is evidence of the fact that it's psychological manipulation / abuse.

> By what other means would people with a product or service to provide reach other people who are interested in obtaining that product or service?

In my opinion, it would take quite a lack of imagination to ask such a question.

There's many many ways to reach people who want your product. Industry-relevant news publishers and conferences, professional/personal anecdotes (eg, blogs and recommendations), demonstrations and training offers, etc.

A different question would be: by what other means would businesses force their products on people who don't want them? Hopefully the answer is: none.

We built computers to store information and make that information searchable. Imagine! The place that sells stuff has a list of things...that you could search through...using a computer. Since you have to sell things somewhere, I am pretty sure the people selling them might put them in the place where people search for them.

They can put their information where it can be found easily by people who are interested-

I have never, even once, bought a product or chosen a brand based on advertising (of course you can point to subconscious conditioning, but that would not support the point you're making).

Wild to be in the age of free reach across multiple social media platforms and be unaware how to sell a product/service without advertising.

Search. If they are interested, they will look for your thing.

They wouldn't. That's the beauty of the plan; it's a feature not a bug.

classifieds, directories, that sort of thing

Everyone knows it was impossible to run a niche business before 2006 when Google thankfully shoved irrelevant advertisements in the way of everything we wanted to do!

There definitely wasn't prior art of entire industries building themselves up out of nothing by making something that was self evidently good and selling it to like five turbo nerds who made sure everyone they found wanted it.

That industry is definitely not for example the software services industry before about 2000, and there definitely isn't a huge trove of examples of literally two guys in a garage building software, sometimes mediocre software, and selling it to niche businesses.

That's definitely not the, like, founding narrative of our entire sector of the economy or anything.

There definitely wasn't such a thing like trade magazines where you could browse a vague and generic interest and find all sorts of awesome and expensive and niche products to buy for your hobby, like low production run test equipment or literal scams built by weird guys in a garage, again.

China definitely doesn't have a clear current example of a huge industry that runs basically from a bunch of guys with a box of junk in a stall in a giant physical building that westerners literally go to as a niche tourist destination that drives a bunch of niche product development.

No no, we definitely need to let Google rewrite the very words in front of your face to sell you whatever the highest bidder wants to sell you. How else could you possibly find things?

Free samples or in-store demonstrations like we used to.

Ideally none at all. They aren't entitled to my attention. I disagree with the very premise of this question.

Why is this getting down voted?

Personal recommendations. Why would you trust someone with a pecuniary interest in selling you something?

We can argue back and forth about the specifics but there is no denying we are way too far in the wrong direction currently. Buy a car? The dealership slaps their name on it. Every screen at every stage bombards you. Radio, music streaming, ads everywhere. Billboards, benches, bus stops, it never stops. I still occasionally see those tacky trucks with bright ads displayed on them just driving around.

A cursory search shows that the average person is exposed to ~5000 ads a day in the US. Everyone is screaming for your attention. It's not healthy.

Acceptable ad: "I write code. If you need code, consider me because [short list of objective attributes about myself, related only to coding]." posted somewhere people looking for people to code go to find people to code. Consciously put there by someone that can be held accountable for choosing to post it. Doesn't evoke strong emotions, especially fear or hate, through barely related stories and imaginary. Doesn't contain any trackers.

Unacceptable ad: Everything seen everywhere.

Catalogues

Maybe these means should be employed in more moderation?

Certainly we wouldn't be better off if advertising were beamed 24/7 at full blast into your ears and eyes the second you step out into any public space.

About 5% of its current proliferation would be a nice target to aim for - maybe a maximum of 200 ads a day[1] - but if that still proves to be an issue, we could always go lower.

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[1] With maybe five rising to the level of notice.

Organic searches and word of mouth.

I find it surprising that more people aren't dismayed at how many advertisements we are being exposed to daily. I think that once you're used to it, you don't feel much concern about it, but when you manage to cut a lot of them out (e.g. I have a pi-hole filtering a large portion of ads in my whole home) it becomes extremely upsetting to be dropped back into a place where they are everywhere.

Few things upset me as much as driving around a beautiful place and having billboards plastered up and down the highway. A few states have come to their senses and banned them.

The issue as a whole is that it genuinely is eroding the human experience. Being alive in a world where your eyesight is real estate to be filled with images that are meant to leave you with negative emotions with the intent of taking your money from you is bleak.

I strongly disagree. Hearing an ad makes me a little miserable/angry almost instantly, without even the context of the ad yet. They are one of the major categories of corporate mistreatment of humans, which together are the #2 most hideous by-design facets of our civilization, after war ("by-design" meaning to the exclusion of illegal activity).

You say that like western culture is the worst here?

Where is it better? Russia? Where stating that a war is a war can get you in prison? China, where historical events, like 1989 at tianamen square are wiped out? North Korea where everyone cheers up to the beloved genius leader?