Comment by qoez
2 months ago
A lot of winners today are those that get away with greyzone illegal practices. The same would happen in a "ads are illegal" world. People would pay for word of mouth, or even pay influential people to casually talk about it, but it'd be off the books etc.
I live in Vermont, where billboards are illegal. It's great, there is so much less visual pollution driving anywhere.
And yes, some people do try to push it, renting space to park their hay carts that happen to have their business information on the side.
But you know what? Those cases eventually get dealt with too, and overall, the law is a complete win, even with a few people testing the line.
This is the best and most obvious example of successful anti-advertising legislation, NYC as well prohibits billboards in most places which is a blessing.
The fact that the MTA is now plastered in flatscreen ads is an example of huge overreach, and also an example of how better funding for public utilities like the subway eliminate the "need" for advertising that the MTA claims.
Unfortunately, this is the system working as designed per the capitalists. Underfund public utilities to make the public more dependent on the for-profit private sector. Banning ads is communism for this mindset.
If you followed this line of reasoning consistently you'd advocate for no additional regulations to ever be imposed by government and all existing regulations to be walked back. That is, to most of us, patently absurd. The answer to your objection is to enforce the laws that we have, not to never make new ones.
People do actually advocate for exactly that.
And as the poster said, that's patently absurd.
not every line of reasoning is intended to be followed to its fullest extent. one can advocate for regulation without advocating for prohibition without contradiction.
People still steal, but we aren't contemplating to just abolish the laws that prohibits theft.
A new law is proposed and people may break it in the future. Is that a reason not to implement that law, because that seems to be the - in my view crazy - insinuation.