[kristjank]

The violations that the average human has been unknowingly a victim of, courtesy of the advertising industry, are in my estimation so insurmountably numerous that I automatically consider someone working in advertising ontologically evil. More so than, say, someone working on face recognition at Lockheed Martin.

[amatecha]

Related: https://www.wheresyoured.at/never-forgive-them/

"You are the victim of a con — one so pernicious that you’ve likely tuned it out despite the fact it’s part of almost every part of your life. It hurts everybody you know in different ways, and it hurts people more based on their socioeconomic status. It pokes and prods and twists millions of little parts of your life, and it’s everywhere, so you have to ignore it, because complaining about it feels futile, like complaining about the weather."

"It isn’t. You’re battered by the Rot Economy, and a tech industry that has become so obsessed with growth that you, the paying customer, are a nuisance to be mitigated far more than a participant in an exchange of value. A death cult has taken over the markets, using software as a mechanism to extract value at scale in the pursuit of growth at the cost of user happiness."

[vizzier]

You remind me of the bill hicks bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h9wStdPkQY

[adiabatichottub]

Alas, all he wanted was to rid the world of all these fevered egos, tainting our collective unconscious and making us pay a higher psychic price than we imagine.

[idle_zealot]

Frankly, advertising as a business sounds evil on the face of it. It's fundamentally a way to turn money into ideas in people's heads. The fact that in order to accomplish this dubious task some of the world's best-paid professionals are pioneering privacy violations and psychological manipulation tactics only adds to the shit pile.

To be clear: creating media for the purposes of spreading an idea is not inherently bad. What's bad is having an industry built around planting ideas in human minds, regardless of the validity or broad utility of those ideas.

And to head off "but then how will people learn about <PRODUCT>?" People buy marketing material, coupon books, attend conferences for the things they care about, and if necessary research options when they need something. A market does not need the feature of shoving information about available products and services in everyone's face to function well. And if you're someone who likes seeing ads, great, open up the yellow pages or digital equivalent and look at all the ads you want. How will ad-supported services like mass social-media sites fund themselves? Not my problem, maybe they don't and they shit down. What a shame.

[portaouflop]

If you put it that way software as a business sounds evil on the face of it (and probably mostly is) - I guess it’s so intertwined because most software companies are just advertising companies with extra steps.

But at least Ads i can avoid - the fucking software eating everything I can’t avoid unless I become a hermit.

[maeil]

This extends to the mainstream social networks. Bytedance, Meta, X. Google is barely better, since they're an ad company, working for them is working for the ad industry. I'm sure many a reader here working at the named places will scream "But I'm only working on the Meta Quest/Gmail/something I consider unharmful!". Now think about how you feel about that argument when someone working for the defense industry claims the same. Those don't claim it as often though; IME, unlike those at the above companies, people in defense tech are more likely to be honest, open and aware of the ethical trade-off involved.

[add-sub-mul-div]

This is nonsense. We all have no choice but to patron many businesses in our lives. We're adults and we understand the information coming from the first party about how great it is is biased. It is still helpful to hear certain facts. Like, a new pizza place happens to exist in town now. The commercial isn't hypnotizing me into going there, I have free will and can form an opinion with information from different sources, weighting them appropriately.

Commercials are often annoying, sure. I like cable with a DVR because I can skip 100% of commercials and the stream can't make them unskippable. But there's no sense in overreacting to the general concept of advertising.

When I go on a date and a woman tells me about herself I understand she may be emphasizing the good and downplaying the bad. It does not make her evil. It's normal for anyone to do.

[adiabatichottub]

I can only speak for myself, but... It's not the concept of advertising I'm against. It's the data collection that could easily be used for nefarious purposes. We can look at history in the last 100 years to find many examples how data like this can be abused. And for those of us in the US, the politics are getting pretty spicy, so the threat is worth taking seriously.

[m463]

I believe you are falling prey to ambiguity purposefully crafted to hide what's really going on. "advertising" is sort of like "privacy" mentioned in a privacy policy (meaning everything but)

It is more like you go on your date, but the woman you go on a date with has no interest in you whatsoever. But she carefully documents your interests, your behavioral habits and shortcomings, along with information about your education, race, religion, age and salary. Then this person sells this to people who you don't want to date, but want to meet and exploit you.

This is why you get ads for timeshares, water filters or casinos that you don't want - but these people have money to put an ad in front of you.

[spencerflem]

When is the last time you've seen an ad and been excited about it?

Essentially nobody is against a local pizza shop putting up a flyer. But most (almost all) ads are by companies like Coca-Cola, who simply want to beat you into submission to associate whatever it they want with their product.

Beach Summer Fun == Coca-Cola.

Childhood Wonder == Disney Resorts.

etc. etc.

You can form an opinion based on facts, but almost all advertising is not about presenting you facts to consider. Its about forming an impression for you.

To me the most sad part is that it's all worthless. If Pepsi does better than Coke, I DONT CARE. And yet, tens of thousands of our fellow citizens toil away hours every day to try to convince us one way or another. And in the process make the world uglier and more hostile.

[staunton]

> To me the most sad part is that it's all worthless. If Pepsi does better than Coke, I DONT CARE. And yet, tens of thousands of our fellow citizens toil away hours every day to try to convince us one way or another. And in the process make the world uglier and more hostile.

To summarize this: advertising is a zero sum game. (In the few instances where it isn't, it's also a good thing).

[barnabyjones]

I disagree, since the feelings it can cause are still real. If making people excited through marketing makes them more motivated to work (increasing their "utility" in dry econ terms), that's the same kind of value creation as any physical product. I'd rather summarize the ill effects as "Nobody is immune to propaganda."

[spencerflem]

I also disagree, but for the opposite reason :p (though imo. it was an excellent summary of a rambly diatribe)

Advertising does not make people excited, or happy, in general. The type that does (movie trailers, mostly) can stay.

In general, advertising makes people unhappy.

Think of the teenagers who see photoshoped, paper-thin fashion models and wish they were them. And then spend their money fruitlessly trying to be something that is impossible.

Think of the people convinced by advertising to invest in scams, or to gamble their money away.

This one gets me personally - I can't see a twix ad without wanting to buy a twix. And yet the world would be better if I didn't! They aren't healthy and I was perfectly happy before I saw the ad and then realized I needed one.

And in general they are UGLY. They demand your attention. There's a reason most people here use uBlock.

[myvoiceismypass]

For me at least - it feels like I am now living in a Black Mirror episode and eventually personalized ads are going to be playing inside bathroom stalls when you are taking a dump.

[chgs]

90% of people are probably on their phones consuming adverts while taking a dump. We’re already there.