Mildly Interesting

Just making billboards ads illegal. It would make every city and the places in-between instantly better

#YES, PLEASE.

I have been fighting advertising in my own way since the early 2000s:

• I abandoned broadcast radio in the mid-1990s. I can’t recall the last time I turned on a car radio.
• I abandoned broadcast TV in 2001
• I jumped on board with Adblock the moment it was released for Phoenix (now Firefox) back in 2004
• The lone streaming service I actually subscribe to is the cheapest non-advertising tier available
• Torrenting covers many of the remaining gaps
• Even my Internet Radio stations are chosen primarily through lack of advertising.

It’s gotten to the point where stumbling across an ad is the mental equivalent to nails on a chalkboard.

“Online communities” are great, but how do you stop them from being infiltrated by corporate astroturfers within five minutes of creation? Doesn’t every major brand have a low-overhead keyboard farm posting social media and forum comments to make them look good?

The thing is I don't think I would mind advertising if it wasn't shoved down my throat 24/7. The fact I can't read a webpage without ads blocking everything, I can't watch TV without more than half of the show's runtime being ads in and out of segments, I can't even step outside without seeing the billboard or another 5 ads shoved in my mailbox!

I get 15 some-odd emails a day from different companies trying to get me to buy things. I block them and they pop up with a different email address. I can't even open my email without ads popping up masquerading as actual messages (Gmail). Don't get me started on the entire Google app thing.

I can't open an online map without getting SPONSERED listings. And places I use the app to order from try to advertise me their own food WHILE I'M ORDERING. Panda Express started asking me if I want a subscription to Starz or whatever.

NO. NO. NO.

I'm exhausted. I want to go to a store without being immediately inundated with ads or sellers. "Buy this!" NO. LEAVE ME ALONE.

I'm overwhelmed. I'm overstimulated. I'm done. I don't care how "quirky" or "flashy" or "hip" your ads are. I refuse to buy anything I see ads for now. It's too much. Shut up.

TL;DR: we need controls and limits to who, what, where, and how things are advertised. It should be an enforcable crime to have ads louder than a certain decibel for one. But it's not enforced and fines aren't more than a drop in the bucket. I doubt I'll see it in ny lifetime.

Lets try it and see what happens. No advertising seems like a reasonable response to advertising everywhere all the time.

I’ve had adblockers on my browsers for years and pay for ad-free streaming. I easily went over a decade without seeing an ad on a screen in my own home. But when I’d go to a restaurant that had TVs (or to my mom’s house where she’d run the TV constantly) I’d marvel at how unwatchable it was. Just a constant interruption.

My wife has a friend who produced a TV series for Tubi and so we signed up to check it out and, wow. I had to tap out of watching it because of the ads. Just completely obnoxious and loud.

I would argue that what this article is advocating for isn't a definitive end to advertisement per se. Truthfully that would be impossible.

What we truly need are iron clad privacy laws that impose unbreakable regulations with destructive fines when violated by companies and organizations.

Even with an adblock and the best privacy controls available, you cannot escape the effects of advertising. Article headlines will still be clickbait. Online recipes will still have long, unnecessary stories at the start. Companies will still want your email for trivial things so they can spam you. There are a hundred ways that advertising affects culture, and it's not something that can change based on individual effort.

As someone who had designed and attempted to sell things. On of my key takeaways has always been the lack of awareness or knowledge of my things exists.

Granted if I put a 50ft build board in the sky it wouldn’t change much. But if I did more than I did.. or am doing it would help.

I saw a metaphor in this thread comparing advertising to Smoking. But I think Sugar is a better comparison. Is it needed? No. But a little will go a long way, and some dishes wouldn’t exists without it. Add to much and it ruins the flavour of the dish and isn’t healthy for the consumer.

What is needed is balance and where everything has hyper sugar in it isn’t good for anyone. So I do we need a rethink, but eliminating it outright isn’t the solution.

Cool idea but we live under the violent imposition of capitalism.

OTA tv would no longer be possible, nor radio AM or FM.
Newspapers (what is left of them) would no longer be possible, neither wouild magazines.
A good deal of the internet is supported by ads too.
If you are willing to give up everything that is supported by ads, I suppose it could work.

YEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSS!

This feels like I wrote it. I've hated advertising for about as long I have been aware of it but I've been telling people we should ban it since the first time I saw one of those articles about how everything was becoming clickbait because of advertising. In all that time, the ONLY thing I have ever thought of which would be a negative effect from a ban is the difficulty of getting the word out about a small business. Any other arguments are just dumb. Advertising is inherently harmful to everyone exposed to it, even the advertisers, who have to burn money to make it happen.

Let’s ban all persuasive advertising! No reason not to let people make a list of features or something, like a notification, but that’s it.

I’m definitely in favor of a ban of advertising in public spaces. Spaces that are owned by the collective ‘us’ should remain free of it. Like public squares, roadways, public transit, etc. Those should be commercial free.

A total ban would be wildly difficult and impractical. It would also widen certain gaps like the rural-urban divide. How would someone in a rural area know an iPhone exists, if the nearest store is a hundred miles away? Or other products that might be beneficial to them?

I live in a city of 160.000 people. And even here, we simply don’t have every store or every product available. Advertising broadens that horizon considerably.

Ads are an odd concept—it’s someone paying money to toot their own horn, which most of the civilized world looks down upon. In fact, the best way to sell me your product is to have the humility to tell me its downsides or give me a nuanced explanation of when to buy your product vs. a competitor. Otherwise, it’s always much better to let someone else sing your praises. I do find documentation, videos, and other factual information about a product to be the best possible sales pitch—give me an accurate picture of it, and if it’s really any good, I might just buy it. If I think you’re trying to bullshit me, I’ll assume your product has to be shit, or otherwise you’d just tell me the facts.

I think some kind of mix approach, example some countries ban some kind of advertising. Advertising medical prescription drugs and treatments is illegal in some countries.

Alternatively companies should pay me to watch their advertisements. Organize events to pay people to watch their advertisement.

With smart glasses AR and AI we should be able to block out all billboard, posters or it could go the opposite way glasses show all kind of adverts.. hmm. We need open source AR smart glasses with adblock.

How exactly do you define advertising? An overly broad definition would forbid, for example, a dentist from putting a sign in front of their office saying they're a dentist.