There are no successful economies without ads.

Ads are a necessary evil for effective market discovery. They should be heavily regulated but you can't effectively operate a market economy without one.

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gtowey 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

I understand what you mean, but I would modify this statement a bit:

There are no successful economies without information exchange. Discovery can happen without advertising -- if you consider that the main feature of ads is that it's unwanted information distribution.

	▲	kube-system 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		There is not any real-world economy that has implemented that information exchange in the absence of activities that would be accurately described as advertising. Even thousands of years ago in illiterate societies people would advertise their goods/services via verbal campaigns, drawn pictures, songs, etc.

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Dylan16807 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There are no successful economies without blue paint, either. As far as I'm aware, there hasn't been enough testing to say much about the importance of ads.

And even if they're necessary at some level, what if the US had 90% less ads, etc.

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kube-system 2 days ago | parent [-]

> There are no successful economies without blue paint

I don't think that is true. The oldest known mass printed advertising is about 2000 years older than the oldest known blue pigment.

> As far as I'm aware, there hasn't been enough testing to say much about the importance of ads.

I think if you look at some early advertising (e.g. BCE), you'll see that most have a painfully obvious functional form of just simply announcing the existence of a product/service for the world to observe.

	▲	Dylan16807 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I mean even vaguely vaguely modern-style economy. And you know that's not the point. The point is there's a lot of things that are omnipresent but also not important to the economy. > I think if you look at some early advertising (e.g. BCE), you'll see that most have a painfully obvious functional form of just simply announcing the existence of a product/service for the world to observe. That doesn't tell us how important it is to have advertising. And it doesn't tell us how important it is to have advertising anywhere near current levels.

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Blikkentrekker 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

All that can be regulated though. In many jurisdictions, it's forbidden for lawyers or pharmaceutical companies to advertise their products with it being regulated what counts as an advertisement and putting oneself into the phone book or putting a big sign with “Lawyer” on one's practice is allowed but putting oneself into a magazine or on television is not.

	▲	kube-system 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		And it should be.

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pluralmonad 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Saying you want some sort of discovery mechanism is different than saying the current ad tech malware landscape is a "necessary evil." It certainly is not.

	▲	kube-system 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Not only did I not say that, but I also agree with you completely.

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matthewkayin 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You're right, but I think this just highlights the issue with market economies.

There is this capitalist lie that money is a stand-in for "value provided to society". So, when you provide value, society gives you money, and you can use this money to ask society for value back.

Which sounds great. And truly, I do believe that people should have to contribute to society if they expect society to support them, but the problem with this lie is that, despite how capitalists make it sound, the market was not designed with this ideal in mind, instead we have imposed it onto the market after-the-fact in order to justify why the market is good and worth keeping around.

But the real truth is that money does not reward the person who contributes the most value, it simply rewards the person who makes the most money. Money is not "value", money is power. And the system rewards profit no matter how it's acquired.

This means that you can provide a good service that people want, but you still need to advertise and compete in order to be rewarded for your contribution.

It also means that you can do something valuable, like cleaning up all the trash off of a beach, but that doesn't mean that the market will reward you for your contribution.

And it also means that if you have a thing and you want to make profit selling it, you can run a manipulative ad campaign that convinces people that they truly need it, and the market will reward you.

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satvikpendem 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> instead we have imposed it onto the market after-the-fact in order to justify why the market is good and worth keeping around

Not sure about that, markets existed since forever and are still useful even without ads.

	▲	pluralmonad 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I don't think very many people in this thread actually mean markets when they say that. Sounds like they might mean corporate controlled markets? Otherwise the comments are gibberish. Markets are just a group of people exchanging time and resources. Wanting that to go away is... Bizarre and nonsensical.
	▲	kube-system 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Advertising exists in some form even in ancient barter economies. It is older than currency.

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kube-system 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Alas, well-regulated market economies are the least-worst option we have.