What if we banned all advertising? Not regulate it—abolish it. This proposal would transform manipulation machines, and maybe save democracy itself. A thought experiment worth considering.

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.

  • merc@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    1 day ago

    What counts as advertising?

    Let’s say you ban ad breaks on TV / streams. In the early days of radio and TV they didn’t have ad breaks, the host of the show would just go on for a while about his favourite brand of cigarettes. In the modern world, pretty much any time you see a name brand in a TV show or movie, it’s because they’ve been paid for product placement.

    So… you could solve that by never allowing the mentioning of any brand name in any form of media. That would make reviews illegal. That’s fair, I suppose, because reviews are definitely seen as a form of advertising. That’s why companies often provide review copies of things for free to journalists in the hope they might talk/write about them. Maybe you could carve out an exception allowing a brand and model to be mentioned if there are safety issues or product recalls?

    Ok, so now you have a Formula 1 event, it’s on TV but you have to pay for that broadcast because it’s not ad supported. The cars, of course, don’t have any ads on them. But, are they allowed to have the manufacturer’s name and logo on them? Is it advertising if say Ferrari puts a lot of money into F1, wins a lot, and so when you watch the news you see Ferrari-red cars with Ferrari logos winning a race? Also, could the drivers wear coveralls with the Ferrari logo on them? What about fans of Ferrari, could they wear a shirt with the Ferrari logo on them if they were simply fans of the brand? What if this supposed Ferrari fan were a supermodel? Does someone have to carefully go through the finances of any very attractive person to see if they’re ever wearing a logo not because they’re a fan but because they’ve been compensated?

    I’m in favour of reducing the amount of advertising we see. I think it’s a bit absurd now. But, while it’s possible to tax it or regulate it, I think it would be very hard to completely eliminate it.