this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2024
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What if we just got rid of digital advertising altogether in the US? How many issues of privacy, health and personal finance would disappear or be greatly reduced?
It's hard for me to imagine what that would look like or the downsides other than to the digital advertising industry itself.
Advertising plays an important role in the sale of digital goods and the physical sale of goods through digital means. It's the only way you can really drive traffic to unknown markets.
Without advertising You're going to be relying on YouTube videos or Google Play store or Apple store to get any sales. Any free online services would probably be a thing of the past. Small businesses would have trouble competing with larger entities can already put products in your face.
It's not impossible to remove digital advertising and replace it with something else but I'm pretty sure the something else would be worse than what we have already
No, advertising is not necessary when a user can search a catalogue with multiple optional constraints, as we did in the olden days of printed catalogues.
Advertising is harmful - it's somebody trying to persuade you that you need to buy a thing. First, you'll usually know when you need something. Second, the salesman is not someone you'd believe normally.
It's an interaction which normally should be initiated by you, not by sellers. Which makes advertising utterly useless immediately.
I'd argue the catalog could be seen as advertising though.
"This is what you can buy from us" and the language in those catalogs presents everything in the best possible light.
Catalogs were almost always free, because it marketed products to consumers... Aka advertising.
You'd open one only when you wanted it.
A database with various characteristics being the main component and the advertising text not being that is better, yes.
To put it another way, the difference is push vs. pull. A catalogue is a pull offering: the person looking at it is doing so by choice, because they're interested in what it offers and want to buy something (or at least window shop). An online ad is a push offering: it's presented to people who did not choose to see it, are not interested in it, and just wish it would go away and let them get on with what they're actually trying to do. Pull advertising is (usually) acceptable. Push advertising is not.