Comment by defanor

> It's such a wild idea that I've never heard it in the public discourse.

IIRC there is a Dilbert comic strip about that.

> Clickbait [...] would become worthless overnight

Advertisement is not the only incentive. E.g., the Veritasium YouTube channel's host explicitly switched to clickbait, explaining it by his intent to reach a wider audience. Another example is clickbait submission titles on HN, not all of which are for the sake of advertisement (unless you count HN submissions in general as advertisements themselves, of course).

> When I say advertising, I also mean propaganda. Propaganda is advertising for the state

Not necessarily for the state, the usual definition includes furthering of ideas in general. In more oppressive regimes, propaganda of certain ideas is actually banned, as it used to be in even more places ("heresy" and suchlike). Combined with selective enforcement, it is as good as banning all propaganda. It may be a particularly bad example of such a ban, but still an illustration of the dangers around it.

I think a better path towards the world without (or almost without) commercial advertising is not via coercion, but as kaponkotrok mentioned in another comment, via education and public discussion (which may also be called "propaganda"), shifting social norms to make such advertisement less acceptable. People can make advertisements unprofitable if they will choose to: not just by ignoring them (including setting ad blockers), but also by intentionally preferring products not connected to unpleasant and shady tactics, including those beyond advertisement: slave labor and other human rights violations, unsustainable energy sources, global warming, animal cruelty, monopolies, proprietary or bloated software and hardware are some of the common examples. Social norms and such enforcement seem to be less brittle than laws are, and harder to turn into an oppression mechanism.

Although, since I brought up monopolies and other issues, perhaps state agencies may also usefully assist with restriction of advertisement, as they do with those. Social norms and laws are not mutually exclusive, after all.