What if we banned all advertising? Not regulate it—abolish it. This proposal would transform manipulation machines, and maybe save democracy itself. A thought experiment worth considering.

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.

  • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
    5·
    13 hours ago

    You’re absolutely right. Any small business left would beg big corporations for buyouts, for pennies on the dollar. Small time influencers would skirt it by the millions. It’d make cyberpunk fiction look tame.

    It might be better if some “standard catalog” was popularized, but still a calamity.