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by traverseda 1048 days ago
I don't think businesses really like ads. Businesses are forced to buy ads. On Facebook if you want to reach your entire audience you need to pay them, they gate off people seeing content they're subscribed to unless you pay. Google is terrible at surfacing relevant local events.

Ads are forced on small business because regular methods of discovery are intentionally nerfed.
1 comments
brickteacup 1048 days ago
> On Facebook if you want to reach your entire audience you need to pay them

Yeah, it's a private business, if you want to use them to reach people you need to pay. What exactly is wrong with that?

> regular methods of discovery

What are these "regular methods of discovery"? Do you think that small businesses didn't advertise before Facebook/Google/etc came along?

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traverseda 1048 days ago
Having a website, showing up in search results.

Being in the yellow pages.

Putting a flyer on a community board or telephone pole. My city has special poles just for flyers.

Word of mouth.

Newspaper ads.

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Sure, some of those are advertising but they're not intrusive or unethical. There aren't as many options for ethically advertising online but that's very intentional, with companies doing the digital equivalent of limiting word of mouth and tearing down flyers.

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mocamoca 1048 days ago
Intrusion-wise I agree, those communication channels are more "pull" than "push"

Even though the search engine is ad-funded (I don't know any free search engine) and can be more or less intrusive (IE. Duckduckgo is not)

Which channels have been intentionally nerfed?

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