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by Super_Jambo 3219 days ago
The solution is to nationalize the advertising industry and force everything possible into a genuinely competitive market.

Have a government run product listing. Think Amazon reviews, Yelp & Companies house. But with government ID to verify reviewers and harsh police enforcement against fake reviews or miss-leading product descriptions. Make it clear there will be prison time for systematic abuse.

We're at a point where this is technologically trivial & the first country to do it properly will get a big advantage over any that doesn't follow suit quickly.

Any person or company offering a product or service can create an account & list their product (with a price & links to where to buy it). Anyone who's bought the product / service can create a review. Throw in some sensible rules about major product changes requiring listings to be updated.

But what about the advertising industry? Fund a massive nudge campaign to improve citizen behaviour. Tail the funding off over a few years, this is really just welfare for all the anti-workers to give them time to switch into doing something economically productive.