Comment by phantasmish
5 days ago
If I go looking for a directory of [service, in my area] that’s hardly an ad! If those include, say, reviews and pricing info, great! Yes, please!
I definitely don’t want that directory to be skewed with ads in favor of those with the most money, or who have decided to burn the most of their limited resources on ads instead of improving their services, lowering their prices, or hell, just taking more profit. The ads were the biggest problem with the good ol’ yellow pages.
Your definition of ad is too narrow then, because those are all different types of ads. A store advertising its goods or even having billboard ads saying the store is at such and such street is, well, an ad.
Directories aren’t ads. The crucial feature would be that nobody would have to pay to get listed, or only a small nominal fee that anyone can afford. Like in a phonebook.
Paying for placement is what makes an ad. And that’s what would have to be prohibited.
> The crucial feature would be that nobody would have to pay to get listed, or only a small nominal fee that anyone can afford
You see the contradiction.
You’re essentially saying no bad ads, only good ads, without defunding the difference. (Anyone can afford a Google or Meta ad in the way they could a White Pages listing.)
9 replies →
companies have to pay to get their products on shelve in many grocery stores
Even in the phone books of old, you had ads as part of the directories... Businesses paid for those listings... Even today's equivalent, yelp, etc. are trying to sell add-on services to the businesses and can harm your businss if you don't pay up for the features.
Right, and in this new ad-free world, those things works not be allowed, and all businesses would be on a level playing field, with none privileged over the others simply because they have a larger advertising budget.
I own ten thousand businesses, all of whom employ me as a contractor. All businesses being on a level playing field puts me at quite an advantage!
If people are using their advertising budget unethically, you should expect them to find new unethical ways to use their advertising budget once you've eliminated the existing ones. Rather than playing whack-a-mole, take a step back, and see if you can fundamentally change the rules of the game. Why is advertising bad? What do you want to happen? Fixing the "how" too firmly, too soon, is an effective way to produce bad policy, no matter how good your intentions.
There's no such thing as a level playing field... you think EVERY brand can fit on store shelves for discovery?
7 replies →
And who puts together this magic directory, without pay?
Who is maintaining and paying for this directory?
Those who are interested in knowing what services exist.
It's absolutely wild to me that people can have experienced any amount of the Internet and not think "word of mouth" will absolutely wholly suffice to fill the role of informing people about products. Of course many, many people would create and maintain all kinds of lists and review all kinds of products without being paid to. We know this would happen because it has, and it does, even with the noise of advertising around. The early Web was mostly this, outside the academic stuff and, I guess, porn & media piracy. Without ads clogging everything up, it might even be possible to find these folks' websites!
3 replies →
They won't. Notice that Angies list doesn't operate on the "customer pays for the list" model. That's because any directory service that depends on the searcher paying suffers from the problem that once you've found what you're looking for, you have no reason to keep paying for the directory. If I need a lawn guy, I only need to find one, and then I have their number. Why am I going to keep paying the "Lawn Guy Directory" $5 a month after I found someone?
And if you're going to charge on a per-query basis, I note that Kagi isn't nearly as well funded or well known as Google, and that's with them offering an "unlimited" tier. And a per-query model disincentivizes me from using the service in the first place. The more digging I do, the more it costs me, so the more likely I am to take the first result I get back.
Even the most classic "direct to the people who are most interested" advertising model where the consumer pays money for the ads (magazine ads) still is almost entirely subsidized by the advertisers, not the consumer.
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Oh, I know how it works. You could have read my whole comment and saved yourself typing anything about the yellow pages. You sweet summer child.