[Auracle]

There are also ads for services. I used to be a photographer, and without my little Facebook/Instagram ads people would have had to largely rely on word of mouth, meaning the more established photographers would absolutely dominate my little rural market even when their photography was worse.

Also, I'm not sure we want a world where only the largest corporations get to sell things. That's what would happen if people could only find things through stores and catalogs, especially pre-internet.

[phantasmish]

If I go looking for a directory of [service, in my area] that’s hardly an ad! If those include, say, reviews and pricing info, great! Yes, please!

I definitely don’t want that directory to be skewed with ads in favor of those with the most money, or who have decided to burn the most of their limited resources on ads instead of improving their services, lowering their prices, or hell, just taking more profit. The ads were the biggest problem with the good ol’ yellow pages.

[satvikpendem]

Your definition of ad is too narrow then, because those are all different types of ads. A store advertising its goods or even having billboard ads saying the store is at such and such street is, well, an ad.

[layer8]

Directories aren’t ads. The crucial feature would be that nobody would have to pay to get listed, or only a small nominal fee that anyone can afford. Like in a phonebook.

Paying for placement is what makes an ad. And that’s what would have to be prohibited.

[JumpCrisscross]

> The crucial feature would be that nobody would have to pay to get listed, or only a small nominal fee that anyone can afford

You see the contradiction.

You’re essentially saying no bad ads, only good ads, without defunding the difference. (Anyone can afford a Google or Meta ad in the way they could a White Pages listing.)

[gpm]

I'd interpret this as a proposal for two new laws:

1. No non-invited display of paid messaging, period. If you go to a directory and ask for a list of people who paid to be part of that directory, it can show it. If you play a game, watch a movie, take the bus, or search a non-paid directory of sites they simply cannot show you things they were paid to show you. I think I'd call this making attention-theft a crime.

2. No payment for priority placement in paid directories. A paid directory has to charge the same (small, nominal) fee to everyone involved.

[JumpCrisscross]

> No non-invited display of paid messaging, period. If you go to a directory and ask for a list of people who paid to be part of that directory, it can show it

How would you distinguish someone asking for the directory versus asking for something else with said directory (which are totally not ads, pinky promise) displayed alongside?

> I'd call this making attention-theft a crime

Someone standing up to make a political speech in a public square is now a criminal?

> A paid directory has to charge the same (small, nominal) fee to everyone involved

This is just ads with a uniform, "small, nominal" fee. Uniformity is objectively measurable. Smallness and nominalness is not. Presumably you mean these directories have to be published at cost?

[YetAnotherNick]

Fixed fee highly favors big players. Not even sure why you want fixed fee. Either remove fee at all or charge higher for bigger players or charge based on sale rather than listing.

[FridgeSeal]

I think they’ve made the difference pretty clear?

Rather than coverage being spend based, it’s a low, static price to be listed in the directory, with near zero extra differentiation other than what you choose to put in your little square/rectangle.

[Dylan16807]

> Anyone can afford a Google or Meta ad in the way they could a White Pages listing.

If I go buy a Google or Meta ad with the same negligible budget, I can get my product shown to 50 people and then the money runs out.

That's completely different from getting onto a phonebook-like list where everyone that visits can see my company's offer.

[layer8]

I see no contradiction. Google or Meta ads are not a catalog. They are imposed on people who didn’t decide to browse a catalog, and also you can’t browse all Google/Meta ads as a catalog. A catalog listing products or businesses doesn’t constitute ads, just as a phonebook doesn’t.

[pharrington]

What does "defunding the difference" mean? layer8 and phantasmish absolutely said what the difference was.

[daedrdev]

companies have to pay to get their products on shelve in many grocery stores

[tracker1]

Even in the phone books of old, you had ads as part of the directories... Businesses paid for those listings... Even today's equivalent, yelp, etc. are trying to sell add-on services to the businesses and can harm your businss if you don't pay up for the features.

[kelnos]

Right, and in this new ad-free world, those things works not be allowed, and all businesses would be on a level playing field, with none privileged over the others simply because they have a larger advertising budget.

[wizzwizz4]

I own ten thousand businesses, all of whom employ me as a contractor. All businesses being on a level playing field puts me at quite an advantage!

If people are using their advertising budget unethically, you should expect them to find new unethical ways to use their advertising budget once you've eliminated the existing ones. Rather than playing whack-a-mole, take a step back, and see if you can fundamentally change the rules of the game. Why is advertising bad? What do you want to happen? Fixing the "how" too firmly, too soon, is an effective way to produce bad policy, no matter how good your intentions.

[tracker1]

There's no such thing as a level playing field... you think EVERY brand can fit on store shelves for discovery?

[shimman]

This is entirely a human construct, we can absolutely make it a level playing field if we collectively choose so.

What a sad comment.

[tpmoney]

You can make it more level, but in any system constrained by the physical world, you can never make it completely level.

Ever notice that there used to be a lot of businesses with names like "A+ Heating and Cooling" or "AAA Chimney Sweeps"? That was because being at the top of the phone book's alphabetical listing was more likely to get you business since a lot of people would open to a section, start at the top and start calling.

There's only so much shelf space to go around, eventually decisions will be made about who can put their products on a given shelf.

Any large business with the ability to produce multiple different products will inherently have the advantage of getting more shelf space assuming you want to display all products.

But even assuming you just wanted your shelf space to be a bunch of "per company" catalogs, businesses with more money to spend on glossier catalogs, or brighter inks, or more variations so thicker catalogs will have an advantage.

Then there's names and numbers. Hooked on Phonics gets a leg up on every other competing reading program because they got the phone number that is 1-800-ABC-DEFG, no one else can have that number. The lawyer who gets 1-800-555-5555 (or other similarly easy to remember number) has a leg up on anyone with a random number out of the phone company's inventory.

But I'm curious, what would this perfectly level field you envision look like? How would these sorts of problems be solved?

[mvdtnz]

Until you try to grapple with real world problems like limited shelf space, limited directory space, how the ads (ahem sorry, directory entries) should be sorted, how to deal with setting boundaries around local directories, etc.

[mvdtnz]

And who puts together this magic directory, without pay?

[Auracle]

Who is maintaining and paying for this directory?

[layer8]

Those who are interested in knowing what services exist.

[phantasmish]

It's absolutely wild to me that people can have experienced any amount of the Internet and not think "word of mouth" will absolutely wholly suffice to fill the role of informing people about products. Of course many, many people would create and maintain all kinds of lists and review all kinds of products without being paid to. We know this would happen because it has, and it does, even with the noise of advertising around. The early Web was mostly this, outside the academic stuff and, I guess, porn & media piracy. Without ads clogging everything up, it might even be possible to find these folks' websites!

[tpmoney]

The early web very quickly gave rise to curated directories of information and stopped working on word of mouth. Yahoo was a directory before it was a "search engine". AOL was a curated walled garden. Web rings were a thing, great for playful discovery, terrible for finding a specific thing. Heck for that matter, web ring banners are arguably just interactive "banners ads".

Word of mouth also requires a high degree of trust in the person spreading the word. Otherwise you get things like youtube "review" channels that are just paid reviews. Or the reddit bot farms where suddenly everyone in a given part of the web is suddenly dropping references to their new Bachelor Chow™ recipes. You can't even trust the news. We all know about submarine ads, but even without that, you can't ever be sure if you're hearing about some new thing on the news because it's really the best/popular, or because they just happen to know a lot of the reporters.

[strbean]

> The early web very quickly gave rise to curated directories of information and stopped working on word of mouth.

Weren't those better before ads got involved?

> Web rings were a thing

Aren't those literally word of mouth?

> Otherwise you get things like youtube "review" channels that are just paid reviews.

That would be illegal under the laws we are discussing, presumably.

[tpmoney]

They won't. Notice that Angies list doesn't operate on the "customer pays for the list" model. That's because any directory service that depends on the searcher paying suffers from the problem that once you've found what you're looking for, you have no reason to keep paying for the directory. If I need a lawn guy, I only need to find one, and then I have their number. Why am I going to keep paying the "Lawn Guy Directory" $5 a month after I found someone?

And if you're going to charge on a per-query basis, I note that Kagi isn't nearly as well funded or well known as Google, and that's with them offering an "unlimited" tier. And a per-query model disincentivizes me from using the service in the first place. The more digging I do, the more it costs me, so the more likely I am to take the first result I get back.

Even the most classic "direct to the people who are most interested" advertising model where the consumer pays money for the ads (magazine ads) still is almost entirely subsidized by the advertisers, not the consumer.

[kelnos]

If I need a photographer, I'm going to go and search for one. If no one is allowed to advertise to me, then both the small and large players in the space are on an even playing field. Your photography website or Facebook page will be just as searchable or indexable as before, as will business directory sites that can help people find services they need, along with reviews and testimonials.

Banning advertising could actually make it easier for new entrants.

[trinix912]

Back then you'd have physical bulletin boards where you could either freely pin your handwritten note/"ad" onto or you'd have someone do it for you. Still technically an ad though.

It's the big players who have the most money for ads, buy up all billboards, internet and TV ads, etc. A small shop can't afford to do that. If ads were completely banned (in all forms including the bulletin boards) then everyone would have to rely on the word of mouth not just small businesses.

I also think that fields like photography are just highly competitive regardless of ads so it's then mostly a networking game.

[keybored]

Capitalism always hides behind the petty business owner/store owner/craftsman. Then the haute bourgeoisie takes the bulk of the profits.

[engineer_22]

Maybe every advanced social system has a propensity towards totalitarianism. Similar criticisms can easily be foisted on feudalism, mercantilism, socialism, anarchism, etc. I think in Western Liberal Capitalism there's still space for a middle class. More, it appears the peculiar features of this system have enabled it to unlock tremendous social vigor and provide for the People historic material wealth. Perhaps what's missing in this system isn't material...

[keybored]

I’m at a loss as to what these abstract to the heavens responses even mean to reply to. What I commented on was the propaganda tactics of capitalism. The topic in itself wasn’t even about the merits of it (but see the last sentence). What you get in response though are these chin-stroking platitudes about but maybe all social systems have their faults, and ah but look at how full and bountiful my fridge is because of this social system.

[engineer_22]

Cadre, I can't help you. If the guy says meta advertising works for him, I'd take his word for it.

[keybored]

Nobody is immune to propaganda.