The idea feels like sci-fi because you’re so used to it, imagining ads gone feels like asking to outlaw gravity. But humanity had been free of current forms of advertising for 99.9% of its existence. Word-of-mouth and community networks worked just fine. First-party websites and online communities would now improve on that.
The traditional argument pro-advertising—that it provides consumers with necessary information—hasn’t been valid for decades.
People can promote things they like.
That is called advertising.
Advertising is when they’re getting paid for it. Otherwise it’s called recommending.
Congratulations! You’ve just reinvented MLMs!
And paying people to suggest they buy something off the guy who has more stuff than they can sell by word of mouth has been our way of efficiently distributing goods for thousands of years. It’s almost as if it is solving an actual dilemma.
That’s not the kind of ad we meant.
So it’s almost as if we don’t want to ban all advertising as some versions of it are in fact useful?
If you want to split hairs, manipulative advertising is what people are talking about, and I’m sure you know that.
“The idea feels like sci-fi because you’re so used to it, imagining ads gone feels like asking to outlaw gravity. But humanity had been free of current forms of advertising for 99.9% of its existence. Word-of-mouth and community networks worked just fine. First-party websites and online communities would now improve on that.”
The article itself contradicts that notion. I added italics to the bit that highlights this fact. They are literally talking about all ads.