I’ve never figured out what I think advertising should be. I currently do basically everything I can to get rid of it in my life.

I’m totally fine with outlining targeted advertising. But even classic broadcast stuff poses the dilemma for me.

I have absolutely noticed I miss out some. As an easy example I don’t tend to know about new TV shows or movies that I might like the way I used to. There’s never that serendipity where you were watching the show and all of a sudden a trailer from a movie comes on and you say “What is THAT? I’ve got to see that.”

Maybe some restaurant I like is moving into the area. Maybe some product I used to like is now back on the market. It really can be useful.

Sure the information is still out there and I could seek it out, but I don’t.

On the other hand I do not miss being assaulted with pharmaceutical ads, scam products, junk food ads, whatever the latest McDonald’s toy is, my local car dealerships yelling at me, and so much other trash.

I’ve never figured out how someone could draw a line to allow the useful parts of advertising without the bad parts.

“You’re only allowed to show a picture of your product, say its name, and a five word description of what it’s for”.

Nothing like that is gonna be workable.

Such a hard problem.