Comment by layer8
5 days ago
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.)
I'd interpret this as a proposal for two new laws:
1. No non-invited display of paid messaging, period. If you go to a directory and ask for a list of people who paid to be part of that directory, it can show it. If you play a game, watch a movie, take the bus, or search a non-paid directory of sites they simply cannot show you things they were paid to show you. I think I'd call this making attention-theft a crime.
2. No payment for priority placement in paid directories. A paid directory has to charge the same (small, nominal) fee to everyone involved.
> No non-invited display of paid messaging, period. If you go to a directory and ask for a list of people who paid to be part of that directory, it can show it
How would you distinguish someone asking for the directory versus asking for something else with said directory (which are totally not ads, pinky promise) displayed alongside?
> I'd call this making attention-theft a crime
Someone standing up to make a political speech in a public square is now a criminal?
> A paid directory has to charge the same (small, nominal) fee to everyone involved
This is just ads with a uniform, "small, nominal" fee. Uniformity is objectively measurable. Smallness and nominalness is not. Presumably you mean these directories have to be published at cost?
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Fixed fee highly favors big players. Not even sure why you want fixed fee. Either remove fee at all or charge higher for bigger players or charge based on sale rather than listing.
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I think they’ve made the difference pretty clear?
Rather than coverage being spend based, it’s a low, static price to be listed in the directory, with near zero extra differentiation other than what you choose to put in your little square/rectangle.
> Anyone can afford a Google or Meta ad in the way they could a White Pages listing.
If I go buy a Google or Meta ad with the same negligible budget, I can get my product shown to 50 people and then the money runs out.
That's completely different from getting onto a phonebook-like list where everyone that visits can see my company's offer.
I see no contradiction. Google or Meta ads are not a catalog. They are imposed on people who didn’t decide to browse a catalog, and also you can’t browse all Google/Meta ads as a catalog. A catalog listing products or businesses doesn’t constitute ads, just as a phonebook doesn’t.
What does "defunding the difference" mean? layer8 and phantasmish absolutely said what the difference was.
companies have to pay to get their products on shelve in many grocery stores