Comment by bccdee
2 months ago
> natural market by default, meaning you must use brutal authoritarianism to disrupt it entirely
Ok? If that's how we define "brutal authoritarianism," I guess I'm a brutal authoritarian. There's a natural market for mob hitmen (scarce + in-demand)—are you opposed to a "brutal authoritarian" crackdown on those too?
> Disrupting natural markets with authoritarianism usually ends up worse than any downsides of the decentralized market regulation of that scarcity.
Citation very much needed. Suppliers of lead paint, asbestos, ozone-destroying aerosols, contaminated foodstuffs, etc. did not regulate themselves in a decentralized manner. In fact, take virtually any toxic contaminant or hazardous product and you'll usually find that the market colluded to cover up evidence of harm, rather than "self-regulating."
> generally trends toward making the highest value messages for both the audience and advertiser
Absolutely not. Consumers do not exert demand for certain types of ads in preference to others. There's no mechanism for ads to converge toward high audience value. It's advertiser value that is optimized for, often to the detriment of consumers (e.g. advertisements for profitable scams, which have negative value).
Even if you want to argue that advertisements inform consumers to some extent, that's probably outweighed by the extent that they misinform consumers. Consider infomercial products: Regular kitchen knives don't need an advertisement because demand is inelastic. If you're cooking, you need a knife; nobody has to promote the idea of knives. But the "slap-chop" is a product with elastic demand, and thus the marginal value of advertising is much greater for them. Hence, they can afford to buy up huge amounts of ad space to drum up demand for an essentially worthless product. The advertising ecosystem has perverse incentive to promote scams.
> But to ban it outright would require an extreme policing of all speech at all levels of society.
There are a lot of noxious and socially destructive things which are not practical to ban.
You've taken small snippets of my text and stood them up as lone straw-men to argue against, instead of arguing against my actual premise.
No, murder is not comparable to advertising. And no, not once did I ever say the phrase "self-regulating" nor did I argue against regulation of advertising.
Your fundamental belief (and the prevailing view on HN) that advertising is a scam and intended to "misinform" is incorrect. Apparently I need to say this again because it's hard to grasp the concept of nuance--Are some advertisements scams? Absolutely. The market is not perfectly efficient, but again, markets trend in the direction of efficiency over long periods.
Ultimately, the vast majority of advertisements you see are for the products that are the most desired by people, hence why they can profitably continue advertising over time.
Just because you aren't interested in the product, doesn't mean it's a scam . Enough people in the audience of whatever media you consume think otherwise, hence why the company is advertising there. Again, there are absolutely stupid companies wasting money on stupid ads, but they tend to get outcompeted by the smarter ones. I get it though, giving people you believe are less intelligent than you the freedom to make decisions is frustrating.
Even in your example of the slap-chop, which you say is a "worthless product," funny enough, I literally just used a similar product yesterday to dice a large amount of onions quickly. Guess I'm stupid and I need an authoritarian like you to tell me a smarter way to live.
Alternatively though, the idea that knife makers don't promote their products is just hilarious to me. The market for kitchen knives is extremely competitive and just because the advertising doesn't take the form of a 30 second TV spot from the 1990s doesn't mean they just throw their products on the market with zero promotion. How do you think certain brands even appear on the shelves of the stores you shop in? You're gonna hate this too...turns out shelf space is scarce so shelf space is a market as well, and it's more of an economic calculation than one of technical passion. Oh no not again!
> No, murder is not comparable to advertising.
Sure it is. You made a sweeping statement about services in a market; those are both services subject to market forces. You say (supposing for the sake of argument that advertising is as harmful as the article makes it out to be) that a ban would be unacceptably authoritarian and ineffective anyway. Well, we ban harmful things in the market all the time. Such as murder.
> not once did I ever say the phrase "self-regulating"
No, you said the phrase "decentralized market regulation," which means the same thing as "the market regulating itself," and suggests the absence of any actual regulation whatsoever.
> nor did I argue against regulation of advertising
You said natural markets could only be controlled through authoritarian means, which is always worse than "decentralized market regulation." This is an argument in favour of deregulation.
> Ultimately, the vast majority of advertisements you see are for the products that are the most desired by people
No, they're for products with the largest marginal return on showing ads. That's why you often see ads for pharmaceuticals that only a tiny segment of the population will ever need—because they're highly profitable and thus advertising offers high returns.
> that advertising is a scam and intended to "misinform" is incorrect
Intended to *manipulate. Whether they inform or misinform is totally orthogonal to their purpose.
> Are some advertisements scams? Absolutely. The market is not perfectly efficient
The efficient market hypothesis applies specifically to asset markets. There's no real model of what an "efficient price" is for most consumer goods, services, or advertising campaigns, because those are not assets and do not retain market value after sale.
Anyway, this strikes me as a bizarrely dogmatic way to "debunk" the widespread presence of scams in our society. Multi-level marketing schemes have not gone anywhere, nor has the related category of self-help seminar grifts. You can keep a lie going for a very long time, and make a lot of money doing so. "Efficient markets" do not protect us from that reality.
> Guess I'm stupid
…
> and I need an authoritarian like you to tell me a smarter way to live.
Try a mandoline slicer, with the julienne teeth up.
> The market for kitchen knives is extremely competitive [even though] the advertising doesn't take the form of a 30 second TV spot[.] [...] How do you think certain brands even appear on the shelves of the stores you shop in? [...] it's more of an economic calculation
So you're telling me that, when it comes to cooking knives, the incentives at play mean I'm primarily exposed to advertising for scam products? Wow I'm glad we agree.
> Suppliers of lead paint, asbestos, ozone-destroying aerosols, contaminated foodstuffs, etc.
Not sure those are good examples, because none of them were “regulated” or banned until there was already a decent alternative available. What is the alternative to advertising, for capturing human attention?
> What is the alternative to advertising, for capturing human attention?
Unsponsored product reviews, I suppose. I'm not a proponent of a complete ban on advertising—I just find the argument being made in favour of deregulation to be deeply silly.
> Not sure those are good examples, because none of them were “regulated” or banned until there was already a decent alternative available.
The argument I'm responding to there is, "Disrupting natural markets with authoritarianism usually ends up worse than any downsides of the decentralized market regulation of that scarcity." There's no mention there of the availability of alternatives—that's not the point being made.