Comment by lukev
2 months ago
I disagree. Advertising is a zero-sum game. If nobody advertised, every solution would be equally discoverable via search and word-of-mouth.
It's only when some actors start advertising that the others must as well, so they don't fall behind. And so billions of dollars are spent that could have gone to making better products.
It's basically the prisoner's dilemma at scale.
>If nobody advertised, every solution would be equally discoverable via search and word-of-mouth.
Most consumers don't do extensive research before making a purchasing decision, or any research at all - they buy whatever catches their eye on a store shelf or the front page of Amazon search results, they buy what they're already familiar with, they buy what they see everyone else buying. Consumer behaviour is deeply habitual and it takes enormous effort to convince most consumers to change their habits. Advertising is arguably the best tool we have for changing consumer behaviour, which is precisely why so much money is spent on it.
Banning advertising only further concentrates the power of incumbents - the major retailers who decide which products get prime shelf position or the first page of search results, and the established brands with name recognition and ubiquitous distribution. Consumers go on buying the things they've always bought and are never presented with a reason to try something different.
A market without advertising isn't a level playing field, but a near-unbreakable oligopoly.
> A market without advertising isn't a level playing field, but a near-unbreakable oligopoly.
Why would it be an oligopoly any more than it is now? You go to a shop (in your city, or online), trust their curation, and buy something. If it's garbage, next time you will pick another shop or curator, or discuss with your friends / colleagues. Repeat until you find a place with satisfactory curation.
Why would this dynamic be bad? Why would I as a customer be better served by banners shoved in my face by the producers with the highest pockets?
I think a market without advertising is sufficiently "alternative reality" that it's difficult to say what it would look like. The giant incumbents are only giant incumbents because of ads to start with.
In a world without advertising, our entire cultural approach to consumption would necessarily be different. Maybe it would be as you say. But, maybe we'd be more thoughtful and value-driven. Maybe objects would be created to last longer, and less driven by a constant sales cycle. Maybe craftsmanship would still be a valued aspect of everyday goods.
Why would it be difficult to say what it would look like? Humans and markets exist for many thousands of years. Advertising in its current form for a couple of hundred. Just look back in time, there were markets then too :)
Removing ads won’t remove people’s desire for cheap stuff.
> If nobody advertised, every solution would be equally discoverable via search and word-of-mouth.
This is unbelievably untrue. Consider clothing brands, large and older labels have an immense advantage over newcomers. Newcomer word of mouth will never come close to some brand that has a store in every mall across the US.
With (say) Instagram ads alone, tiny labels can spend and target very effectively to create a niche, and begin word of mouth.
Gap and Lululemon would love it if all advertising was shut off today. It would basically guarantee their position forever because of the real estate and present day distribution Schelling point.
I disagree, one component of advertising is discovering things you didn’t even know existed. Having to actively look stuff like that up would be much harder.
That component doesn’t matter because advertising also makes it harder to find what you need, since everyone is doing it. If you didn’t know it previously existed, how do you even know if it will solve your problem like it says it does?
I see an ad for the steam deck and think “wow, a portable gaming console allowing me to play computer games while on trips. Very cool!”, but I am not actively googling for gaming consoles every month to see what’s released.
Or movies, basically all movies I went to a cinema for were because the trailers were played as ads somewhere. I’m not actively monitoring movie releases.
3 replies →
I'd happily exchange that discoverability for control of my own informational environment.
Even if you're right, think about the positive effect that'd have on society. The people with cool, interesting products would be the ones who put a little intentionality and effort into it, incentivizing everyone to be a little more thoughtful.
You already have as much control as you’ll ever have. You can participate or avoid millions of options. You can pay for ad-free options, etc etc.
i haven't come across a single ad that would have helped me to discover things i didn't know existed. and i don't think i missed out on anything because of that.
Really? I definitely learned about Send Cut Send and PCBWay from advertising. I had no idea that kind of custom manufacturing was even possible let alone affordable.
And why would you want to discover commercial products (NOT "things") that you didn't knew existed? That's some form of brainwashing that I don't accept and would gladly get rid of.
Let me give you an example: I don't mind raking leaves, but I hate the step where you have to use the rake in one hand and your hand in the other to pick them up, spilling leaves on the trail to the bin.
My wife saw an ad for "rake hands" -- I had never thought that a solution to my gripe would exist, but for twenty bucks a significant source of friction in my yard work is gone, and I would have never even thought to look for such a solution.
Because they could improve your life. To come up with good examples, one would have to know more about your preferences.
But imagine there's an event (party, fair, game jam) and the only way to know it's happening is to specifically search for it, there are no posters or advertisements online. Don't you think that some people that would have wanted to go would miss it because they never even noticed that there was an event?
1 reply →
I think the answer is obvious, no? Because there may be products that can make your life better but you don't know about them. It's a bit like asking "why would you ever want a medical treatment you didn't know existed?" Because I, not being a doctor, don't know of the existence of most medical treatments but some may be able to cure diseases or other ailments I have.
1 reply →
Theoretically: yes.
Realistically: no, you can’t stop big companies from advertising. Just having multiple shops bearing your logo gives you a level of brand recognition that’s hard to beat. Even if no one advertised, they’d still find ways to dominate the conversation and outshine competitors through sheer presence. You’re right that it becomes a kind of arms race, but in practice, trying to "opt out" often means falling behind.
So, if no one competed to get ahead of competitors, by making better or cheaper products and to grab the available marketshare, we would just have better and cheaper products without it? Sounds flawed to me.
Not sure what you mean. People would definitely still compete on quality and price in a world without advertising: much moreso, because they couldn't just spend money for sales without improving their product. If they wanted to improve sales, they'd have to either get better or cheaper.
Why? It's another prisoner's dilemma.
>If nobody advertised, every solution would be equally discoverable via search and word-of-mouth.
No it wouldn't. If someone opens up a new restaurant a block away there's not going to be much word of mouth when it just opened, and even if they make a website, web search will prioritise the websites of existing restaurants because their domains have been around longer and have more inbound links.
IDK what your community is like but if a new restaurant opened a block away from me then:
1. Every one would see it, because they have eyes and leave the house.
2. Every one would be talking about it.
it is 2025, no one just leaves the house. my wife leaves the house once per week for an hour to go to cosco :)
well, web search is one thing that would look very different
I don't think it's a zero sum game. Some degree of advertising will make a product more discoverable regardless of whether competitors advertise or not.
If nobody advertised then first mover advantage would be everything. How would a new product come to market and compete with no way of getting new users except word of mouth?
> every solution would be equally discoverable via search
I hate ads but there would be no search engines without ads unless they were backed by governments
We don't know, we just can't imagine
Without advertising you won't have search, because that's how search engines are funded. And you'll also lose pretty much all of the online options for word-of-mouth, too.
I pay for search. What do you do?