What if we banned all advertising? Not regulate it—abolish it. This proposal would transform manipulation machines, and maybe save democracy itself. A thought experiment worth considering.

The idea feels like sci-fi because you’re so used to it, imagining ads gone feels like asking to outlaw gravity. But humanity had been free of current forms of advertising for 99.9% of its existence. Word-of-mouth and community networks worked just fine. First-party websites and online communities would now improve on that.

The traditional argument pro-advertising—that it provides consumers with necessary information—hasn’t been valid for decades.

  • lemmyngEnglish
    15·
    2 days ago

    The most stupid argument I’ve seen is from an American who said “what if you don’t know about the effects of a drug that could save your life?”

    If only there was a system of interconnected knowledge bases where new information could be published and indexed for easy lookup… Nah what am I saying, who would have interest in such a thing…

    • comfy@lemmy.ml
      1·
      1 day ago

      Don’t be silly, no-one knows what a library is these days! They’re all stuck on that internet thing.