Comment by kobalsky
4 days ago
the internet ad industry is raking billions from all over the world into the USA, how can you call that unproductive.
4 days ago
the internet ad industry is raking billions from all over the world into the USA, how can you call that unproductive.
It's parasitic, not productive.
A tick can contain a lot of blood, doesn't mean it produced that blood.
Ticks do not require the consent of the host to drink blood.
Things like Google and Facebook cannot be parasitic, every dollar gained is a voluntary exchange with no threats. People choose to use Google and gain something from doing so.
Yep if the host agreed to die, then the market is a success. We've discovered the most efficient outcome – sucking the customer dry until they die! Thank you to the free market for delivering us this efficient result.
Remember kids – thousands dying from lack of healthcare isn't a bug of the system, it's a feature. This has been determined as necessary, nay even beneficial, by market forces that can never be wrong.
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Because is fucking undproductive, useless and detrimental to society. Advertising is a cancer, an immoral activity.
If you owned a small business you'd be singing a very different tune.
Own a small business, still cancer. Will never use and lo and behold, all runs fine.
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Hi. I own a business. I still find ads to be cancer.
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> If you owned a small business you'd be singing a very different tune.
The problem with advertising is that a little bit done honestly is actually good and fine. What we actually have way, way too much, and it's often dishonest and manipulative.
It's a similar thing with finance. It's necessary, but way too many talented people are spending their energies on it.
Black and white thinking doesn't really capture the situation, and ends up creating a lot of noise (BAN IT ALL vs. IT'S ALL GOOD AND YOU LOVE IT, FIGHT!).
Honestly, I think it might be a good thing to put caps on the number of people that can work in sectors like that (and further limit the number of very smart people working in them), to direct talented people to more productive and socially beneficial parts of the economy.
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That's a problem that advertising both created and feeds off of.
Setting aside the moral aspect which is highly subjective and seems to have a price tag (for example tech CEOs quit any sort of morals for a good paycheck), the productivity question is a measurable one.
Aka does advertising as a whole increase total consumption or is it a zero sum game (aka send bigger slice of the same pie to a competitor)
From what I know advertising does increase total demand aka more things/services need to be produced and sold on aggregate.
Some of the demand induced by ads is useful; people becoming aware of stuff they didn’t know exists, and finding that it provides a useful service for them.
But most ads are trying to convince you to buy their brand’s version of a product that you already know of, or (even worse!) a new version of an old product. Any demand induced there is just wastefulness.
If Amazon can figure out that I’m interested in headphones, I already know more actual information about headphones than their ads will give me.
> for example tech CEOs quit any sort of morals for a good paycheck
An alternative explanation is that prospective tech CEOs who are willing to overlook morals are scarcer and thus mandate higher salaries. ;)
Is increasing total consumption something positive?
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I disagree
There is good and bad advertising.
I'd want to receive ads for things that I'm really interested in.
I can’t relate to that. When I see a banner ad I find it obtrusive whether it’s from Bank of America or my favorite HAM radio company. If I’m in the market for a product I value hearing the testimonials of people in my life rather than an advertisement.
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It's like saying there is good and bad diseases because some solve other problems like space in nursing home.
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If you're "really interested" in something, you're already following new releases, doing extensive research for purchases etc, so why would you need ads?
a profitable market can still be unproductive if the overall result is a nuisance to society on almost every level
like the healthcare industry in the US
Stealing is raking billions every year as well, yet I wouldn't call it productive.
It doesn’t produce any things.
Even worse, because advertising is a Red Queen's Race where the only limit on expense is what your competitors are spending, it's actually worse than unproductive because it increases company expenses without increasing product quality, leading to higher costs on everything for everyone.
You cannot be serious it. All of the ad tech companies produce a service people want otherwise no one would use them!
There may be other services that might be better if not for network effects, but it is trivially true that a search engine is better for most people than no search engine at all. And that is what is produced.
The same could be said of tobacco companies. You might want to rethink your argument.
How do you feel about online gambling?
Imo, profits != productive or to a benefit of society.
By that definition, war is extremely productive
At least a few evil people attack once in a while thus proving some defense is needed so they they are not completely unproductive/useless. Much as I wish they were not needed.
what evil ppl? what attack?
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It is though, more value is generated by the MIC than is put in and war has yet to ruin the productive capacity of the United States. The societal ills of this are why it’s popular to call America an evil empire
Ah the broken window fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
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