Comment by skybrian
9 days ago
Skill issue? Some people are clearly more vulnerable than others. You can occasionally get useful information from ads.
9 days ago
Skill issue? Some people are clearly more vulnerable than others. You can occasionally get useful information from ads.
Just because some people are more resilient to opium, and some people can have a good time on it, doesn't mean you should get an opium injection when you're going for a regularly scheduled doctor's appointment.
Ads are being forced on you when you're trying to do something else, like you go to facebook to see your actual friend's pictures of their kids, you're not looking for ads, and yet you get some micro-brainwashing on the side.
The true "skill issue" is that governments are too unskilled to prevent these mass mental attacks to prey upon their citizens, and haven't gotten off their ass enough to make advertisement even more illegal than other similarly harmful substances like opium, tobacco, and online gambling (both sports gambling and gacha games).
Those apps where you share pics or whatever would not exist without ads if people had to pay for them.
So I am not sure if all is bad in that sense. Bc it lets the apps for sharing without people having to pay to exist in the first place.
I am not doing any assessment regarding to the toxicity of ads. I am just trying to objectively say that this also spreads "horizontally" software for free in some sense.
> Those apps where you share pics or whatever would not exist without ads if people had to pay for them.
This is a wild assertion.
Were we not able to build roads before billboards were invented? Does your telephone company interrupt your call with ads? Does the postal service open your letters to insert a leaflet with promotional offers? What alternate universe do people who claim this live in???
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The only alternative to ads isn't people directly paying cash to evil private companies.
Like, the fact that instagram's average revenue per user is around $25 means that instagram ads are, on average, tricking people into buying 100s of dollars of crap they don't need.
If the ads weren't successfully brainwashing people, eventually people would stop buying ads presumably.
... But yes, I agree people will generally choose a "brainwashed consumer" tax to the tune of $300/year over paying instagram $25/year.
So, what's the solution? Advertisement should be illegal, the government should tax everyone a bit more, and taxpayer dollars should go to making ad-free social networks where people can post pictures of their dog.
Like, having highways and electricity and the internet was seen as beneficial, so the government has subsidized a huge amount of infrastructure for those things, to the benefit of all.
If being able to search the largest collection of knowledge ever created, the internet, has value to the people, the government should create or subsidize an ad-free search engine. If communicating has such value, the government should create or subsidize a messaging app that doesn't brainwash the users.
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This reminds me of how Scientology reportedly targets intelligent people because those people think they are too smart to be sucked in.
The advertising industry has hired some of the world's best talent (tech, psychology, legal) to make you more susceptible to it. They probably love those who AstroTurf thinking they are "less vulnerable" and "ads are useful actually"
You are not immune to propaganda.
Give me 1-2 examples of useful info we can get from ads?
There are some cases where ads are useful for sure.
For example, I found out about the local farmer's market in my city via advertisements being hung up around town, and that helped me get fresh produce and find some community. I'm not sure if I ever would have found that farmer's market otherwise.
I also found one job via a "Who's Hiring" hacker news post, and that's obviously an advertisement thread advertising open positions.
Of course, these do not balance out the negative impact of ads, such as advertising credit cards and sports gambling and gacha gambling games to get people into debt, advertising tv shows and movies to waste people's time watching garbage, and generally advertising garbage that makes people who were otherwise happy waste money and time for no real gain in life satisfaction.
I see, these are valid. Especially in smaller communities in rural areas ads can really help bringing people together. I live in a small village since about 2 years now and have NO idea what's going on here (as I don't watch/read ads). Sometimes thats sad, but usually I want to be left alone anyway. A farmers market sounds cool though.
I'd categorize job postings a bit differently, if Facebook was full of (legitimate) job postings I think it would be less of an issue. I agree on all the gambling stuff you wrote.
You basically pointed this out already but there’s a big difference between something designed to notify you about something you might not have known, similar to what you’d find on a community bulletin board, and something trying to manipulate you into buying something you don’t need at all.
I think a lot of people use the term “ad” to refer solely to the latter category. This goes back to the origin of modern advertising (and even earlier with snake oil salesman and charlatans, which were scamming merchants using music and stage shows lol — sound familiar?) and using the term “public relations” as an alternative to “propaganda”.
Like whenever/wherever there's a sale going on about something you were out to buy anyway, helping you save money.
Do you think companies run those sales so they can earn less from you? If you didn't buy it before the sale, then why not?
> You can occasionally get useful information from ads.
And flies eat horse shit because they occasionally get nutrients from it