The idea feels like sci-fi because you’re so used to it, imagining ads gone feels like asking to outlaw gravity. But humanity had been free of current forms of advertising for 99.9% of its existence. Word-of-mouth and community networks worked just fine. First-party websites and online communities would now improve on that.

The traditional argument pro-advertising—that it provides consumers with necessary information—hasn’t been valid for decades.

  • xigoi
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    Advertising is when they’re getting paid for it. Otherwise it’s called recommending.

    • RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      8
      ·
      2 days ago

      And paying people to suggest they buy something off the guy who has more stuff than they can sell by word of mouth has been our way of efficiently distributing goods for thousands of years. It’s almost as if it is solving an actual dilemma.