[Fubarberry]

What would you recommend as an alternative to advertisements? I do think a lot of ads go too far, but I think some form of advertisement is necessary to get new awareness of new brands and products. Otherwise only the pre-established large brands and products will ever get sales, which would lead to a lack of competition and all the negatives that come with that.

[somenameforme]

It sometimes confuses me how people seem to not think that word of mouth is a thing. It absolutely is. In the games industry, there are endless examples. Because on places like Steam, you generally only get promoted if you're already doing well - yet there are countless games that flop at launch meaning 0 visibility, yet they also see great long-tail success.

One of my favorite is Kenshi. [1] Within a few months after launch, the dev was left with literally tens of users. Yet he continued working on it endlessly (while working as a part time security guard) and today it has near to more players than ever. And that's because of word of mouth. Which I suppose is something I'm also here partaking in. It's a great game!

[1] - https://steamcharts.com/app/233860

[Fubarberry]

Word of mouth is a great way to grow, but only once you already have users. Word of mouth requires people to already be your customer to bring in new customers, so the less business you have the less potentially useful it is.

If word of mouth is the only advertisement replacement allowed, it would force many companies to rely on fake sockpuppet customers to try to get started.

[rixthefox]

I don't propose any alternatives to advertisements. The simple fact of the matter is that as long as people also need to pay for mobile data or are subject to data caps that advertisements are a giant waste of bandwidth and at their very worst a distribution method for malware and other malfeasance on the web. It's a giant "pay for placement" that has no regulation because as long as the advertising companies are making money hand over fist they have no obligation to police the content being pushed through their networks because they get paid either way!

The age old use of advertisements that were generic and placed on TV channels were IMHO the "peak" of what advertising could be. All other forms of advertisements have proven to be predatory. Sites DEMAND you view their ads so that they can receive money to keep the site going.... That inevitably results in traffic to the site going elsewhere and the same result is that the site dies so I absolutely agree that if the site/product requires continuous profit through advertisements because otherwise it would not be able to continue operating then maybe that site/product does not need to continue existing.

[BiteCode_dev]

You don't offer alternatives. Either a product or service is valuable enought to get customers, or it's not and it dies.

It will actually benefit small structures that have no money for marketting anyway.

And big ones won't be able to rely on their treasure chest to generate more of it, they will have to earn it.

[n4r9]

In a civilised society, among other regulations, advertisements would be shown only to people that have pro-actively searched for a service or product.

[stuart73547373]

this would be great if everyone was rich enough to afford to pay for their services with money.

but it would cut off a lot of services and opportunities for everyone else who is able to pay with their attention (to ads) instead

[secstate]

I mean, we're basically heading towards a basic minimum income at that point, where you truncate the top 5% of the tax ladder and redistribute it to the bottom 25%. At that point, people could pay for services.

Dig a little into the idea that people can "pay" with their attention (and with their poor health, crappy buying decisions, personal freedoms) might fit the dictionary definition of sinister.

[chii]

> truncate the top 5% of the tax ladder and redistribute it to the bottom 25%. At that point, people could pay for services.

why should those at the top 5% pay for more than basic subsistence to the 25% at the bottom? Welfare is for survival (and survival only), not for services that is not essential.

[withinboredom]

I suspect you have no idea what the “top 5%” looks like (in the US).

The bottom of that 5% looks like extremely upper middle class. Big houses, probably a vacation somewhere nice once a year, new cars fairly regularly, etc.

The middle most likely live in gated communities, with any kids going to private schools. They fly first/business class everywhere and can probably even afford to buy one of those tickets at a moments notice. Their closet is worth more than most people will earn in several years of working.

At the top end, these people have multiple tennis courts, pools, basketball courts, etc in their back yard. If there is something they want, they most likely have staff on hand to handle it. If they want to go somewhere, they hop in one of their private jets, helicopters, or chauffeured cars and go there. Oh, and they have a team of lawyers ensuring they never pay a dime in taxes.

Source: spent some time with each of these personas in my life.

[secstate]

This space is too small for a philosophical debate about the merits of UBI. Suffice it to say, when the top 5% has 1,000x more than they need for subsistence and the bottom 25% has never had access to more than 1x more than they need for subsistence, nothing will ever change. And more to the point, because having 10-20 times more than you need for subsistence has a demonstrable impact on your ability to generate more wealth 1) some will always get richer and pull away from the majority over time and 2) eventually the majority of people without subsistence amounts of wealth will rise up and kill you.

Maybe that wont happen in our current system for a generation or two. But then the question those 5% at the top have to ask themselves is whether they feel lucky to avoid an uprising against them in their lifetime.

[n4r9]

Yeah, the trade-off of switching money for attention is not obviously beneficial to society. For example I can easily imagine that there's a significant mental health impact of being constantly advertised newer and better things.

[keybored]

> What would you recommend as an alternative to advertisements?

Not Having Enough Information is the least of anyone’s problems.

> I do think a lot of ads go too far, but I think some form of advertisement is necessary to get new awareness of new brands and products. Otherwise only the pre-established large brands and products will ever get sales, which would lead to a lack of competition and all the negatives that come with that.

This is a very post-hoc rationalization. Given that this isn’t how advertisement was invented and I have seen no evidence that this is how it works in practice, I don’t see a reason to accept it as a premise.

See political advertisement in America. That massively, massively favors the big players, not the little ones. Not only to boost them directly but also by actively smearing the other candidates, which moves the outsider candidates from the category of “never heard of” to “scumbag” in the minds of voters. (If you have no other information you have nothing else to go on.)

[Fubarberry]

I would argue that larger brands have to have more ads to sway opinion because people are already familiar with their products. Coca-cola is one of the bigger advertisers, but everyone already knows what Coke tastes like and if they like it. Seeing dozens of Coke ads won't change someone's opinion much, compared with seeing a single ad for a new drink can take them from 100% unawareness of the product to knowing it exists.

[keybored]

Ads are not chiefly about awareness. They are about producing want, manufacturing desire. The idea that ads are about “hey we have a product, just thought we’d let you know my good sir” hasn’t been true for over a century.

You don’t advertise until you are confident that 90% of your potential market segment knows about you. You advertise continuously as long as the desire-making makes a profit according to whatever projections the marketing department makes.

You say that that Coca-cola is one of the biggest advertisers. At the same time everyone knows about them. Are they simply pouring money down the drain?

[spencerflem]

most ads are not promoting new products, the biggest spenders are CocaCola and Disney

[throwaway48476]

Advertising well known products is an exercising in bribing the media advertised in to look the other way on their abuses.

[spencerflem]

I'm not convinced. I've seen these ads work on myself- I see an Oreo ad and think, oh an Oreo does sound nice now actually. Or that something is popular and the best: why go to Bush Gardens when we all know that Disney is the Premiere theme park.