[dwild]

> I work at an organization that does almost no marketing; we mostly spread by word of mouth. We have no shortage of customers or work, and growth would be harmful to the quality of our product, so we're pretty content with our place in the market.

The good old survival bias. You did it thus it's possible for all!

Sadly the truth is, word of mouth doesn't always work, you are just lucky.

[TeMPOraL]

The primary reason word of mouth doesn't always work is because of advertising. If you don't scream, nobody will hear you over everyone else's screams. But if people stopped screaming, then they could actually hear conversations.

[cameronbrown]

So in your world where advertising went away and Facebook/Google/YouTube/etc are gone (don't pretend they'd survive without ads), where exactly do you do the screaming? In real world public spaces? That's an even more toxic form of advertising and far more wasteful.

[TeMPOraL]

You don't scream. You talk to people. They talk to other people. If your message is worth it, it'll organically reach those who'd benefit from it. Also, you could post your message in places where people interested in the kind of problems you're solving come to look for solutions. Trade shows, product catalogs, storefronts, and their on-line equivalents.

> don't pretend they'd survive without ads

I don't see why Facebook and Google couldn't work with a non-advertising-based business model. You might end up having to actually pay a little bit for it, though.

> In real world public spaces? That's an even more toxic form of advertising and far more wasteful.

And it's already saturated. This needs to go too.

[dwild]

> You might end up having to actually pay a little bit for it, though.

How old are you? I'm from the 90's, I'm from the generation that was on MSN all the time. My parent would have never let me pay for anything online, with no access to credit cards...

There's no ways they would have paid 5$ a month for a social networks, even if "all my friends were on it", which wouldn't be true, just like Runescape in the past.

[TeMPOraL]

Late 1980s. MSN didn't exist at the time. MSDN did, though, and didn't require advertising support, Microsoft was fine with offering it for free.

I didn't mention it in the article, but I do recognize what you said as about the only redeeming thing about advertising on the Internet. Free content is a huge boon not just for the less wealthy, but for kids. I do not have a good idea how we could get rid of ads on-line while not excluding these demographics at the same time. I was kind of hoping someone on HN would have some ideas, but nothing turned up so far.

[cameronbrown]

But that's the problem. Businesses are always going to scream about their product, there's no easy way to put restrictions on that and still have a free market. Remove advertising and incumbents have all the advantage. Word of mouth is powerful, but it can't be done alone.

> Trade shows, product catalogs, storefronts, and their on-line equivalents.

These are all advertisements, just a different type.

[TeMPOraL]

> These are all advertisements, just a different type.

Yes. That difference of type is what makes them ethical and not annoying.