[hightrix]

I fully understand that advertising enables many businesses.

But there have been businesses based on lead pipes for drinking water plumbing, asbestos for residential insulation, and so on. You could make an argument that these technologies enabled many businesses as well. That doesn’t mean we should allow lead pipes for drinking water or to use asbestos in residential homes.

[loumaciel]

Online advertising has leveled the playing field, allowing smaller brands to compete with big names. Platforms like Google make it easy to capture attention, which is why even giants like Nike are losing market share to newer players. This shift spans all non-regulated industries. Without online ads, launching a nationwide brand would require enormous budgets, leaving us stuck with the same old monopolies.

[rurp]

If you're right about that being the dominant effect we should see small businesses increase as a portion of GDP as online ads become more prevalent, but as best I can tell we aren't seeing that at all. For example this[0] chart from the US Chamber of Commerce shows their share of the economy actually shrinking significantly.

An alternative effect could be that online ads are an avenue for better resourced established companies to out compete and stifle upstarts. Startups are always pressed for resources and running an effective online ad campaign can take significant resources.

You're surely right that some small businesses have benefited from the online ad market, but I suspect that on average larger companies have benefited to a greater degree.

[0]https://www.uschamber.com/small-business/small-business-data...

[JumpCrisscross]

> if you're right about that being the dominant effect we should see small businesses increase as a portion of GDP as online ads become more prevalent

Ceteris paribus. Running a small business in most states involves more rules today than it did in 2000. (Common denominator: the cost of financial transactions due to post-9/11 anti-money laundering rules.)

[nomat]

> allowing smaller brands to compete

to name a few: LISEN, Qifutan, Loncaster, YKYI, Holikme and SXhyf. And who could forget VWMYQ?

[account42]

This is doubly funny because the one really profiting here is Amazon, aka a big corp.

[candiddevmike]

How has it leveled the playing field? It's now become an arms race of bidding for the top ad spot, even for your own brand name. The big players can out spend the little guy and even be top ranking on searches for them.

[tgv]

Large companies spend quite a bit of money on online advertising, and also on research on that. They test their materials, they have data teams for comparing campaign results. And they can hijack other brand names if they pay enough. I wouldn't place my washing machine on your playing field.

And it still doesn't justify Google.

[briandear]

Lead pipes are a bad pipe. But we still need pipes. The problem is the lead, not the pipe.

[BurningFrog]

This is the worst attempt at logical reasoning I've seen in a while...

[hightrix]

What’s hard for you to understand?

Plumbing is good and useful. Plumbing using lead pipes is harmful.

Advertising can be good and useful. Modern advertising that requires tracking everything a user does is harmful.

[BurningFrog]

After rereading a few times, I think I've parsed your argument:

That X enables many businesses to exist doesn't mean that X is a good thing on balance, because X itself can have harmful effects that outweigh the benefits.

This is of course true, and I can look past the inelegant phrasing.

But to make this a credible argument you need to argue for why the costs of advertising outweigh the benefits.

[JumpCrisscross]

> What’s hard for you to understand?

They're looking for depth where there isn't any. You're attempting to prove advertising is bad by claiming it's like lead pipes, on the basis of them both being bad. It's tautology. One could similarly "prove" ad blockers or puppies by this analogy to be whatever because they, too, can be good or bad.

[hightrix]

Please read again.

Modern advertising is what I'm against, not advertising as a whole.

Similarly, I'm against lead pipes for plumbing, not plumbing as a whole.

[Iulioh]

Bad things happened because tool, tool bad , very good argument.

Put yourself in the mind of someone making a THING, how do you plan to reach your possible customers for THING?

THING is the best in class, better than the competition but how would you make the world aware of THING existing?

[trgn]

how did this happen before advertising?

trade shows, trade magazines, word of mouth, window-dressing in the THING-quarter, ...

why are personalized ads on a website indispensable?

[hightrix]

> why are personalized ads on a website indispensable?

They aren't. This is exactly what I mean by modern advertising.

If ads were just contextual based on the content of the page, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

[kelnos]

> If ads were just contextual based on the content of the page, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

I'd still be blocking them, though.

[Iulioh]

What do you mean before advertising?

There is no before advertising

Pretty sure we have ads from Mesopotamia

[jollofricepeas]

Give or take a few hundred years.

Advertising (4000 BCE)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_advertising

Fact-checking is literally just a Google search away. Irony intended.

[trgn]

i know what you're saying, but really now, you know what i mean. some scribbles on a pancard or some fish monger shouting above the crowd, it's not the same as the mass media ads that find you everywhere willingly and unwillingy, 24/7. so before 1900, why not, to make it easy. let's go back there.