I've often wondered what would happen if we _taxed_ advertising [0]. The same rationale applies: it'll never work, and it'll never even be tested, but I agree, it was fun to think about.

[0]: https://matthewsinclair.com/blog/0177-what-if-we-taxed-adver...

In Thailand signs are taxed based on its size, text language (Thai only, No text or multilingual text and Thai text are placed lower than other languages, Multilingual text), and static/dynamic (I assume this applies to both digital and trivision).

This also not only for advertising but also normal signs like the logo of the business on buildings. You'll see most people circumvent the more expensive multilingual rate by adding small Thai text at the top of the sign.

Unrelated, but another interesting fact is that some bus stops in Bangkok are completely funded by an advertising company. Of course, they'll get the ads space for free as a result, and they only offer it in viable locations. The current governor doesn't like this idea and settle for a less fancy bus stop paid by public money.

He talks about a Pigovian tax for ads, which is interesting. I don’t have any thoughts other than “yeah good idea.”

But, something I haven’t fully worked out but have vague suspicions about: are ads actually a tax-favorable business model under the current system? We watch ads in exchange for some service, if it wasn’t an ad-supported service we’d have to pay money for it, and that transaction would be taxed.

Of course, the transaction between the ad network and the company placing the ad is taxed. But it seems like they could have a lot of play, as far as picking where that transaction takes place…

Ads should at least be taxed as heavily as if we had paid for the thing with money, IMO.

You're forgetting a very important problem: hard to implement. Sugar in drinks and CO2 emissions are easily measured. The definition of what's an ad is much harder.