
Is Advertising Morally Justifiable? The Importance of Protecting Our Attention - dredmorbius
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2015/07/14/4273200.htm
======
luso_brazilian
IMO there is nothing wrong with advertising in the strict sense of the word.
"Here is this product. That's how it works. That's how it's different from its
competitors. Here is the price. Here is the total cost of ownership as
compared to the competitor. Here is how this product can satisfy your needs in
this specific case":

But what is being passed today as advertising is nothing like that, it is more
like high school psychological and emotional blackmail. "Here is this product.
If you don't have it you are not in the ingroup but in the outgroup. You are
not beautiful enough without this product. People will look down on you
without this product. This product will make you more attractive to the
opposite sex and more likely to land a high paying high profile job".

It is very hard to legislate this are because of freedom of speech concerns
but the British have a very good set of regulations concerning to
advertisement [1] and an independent regulator responsible for this area [2].

[1]
[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2008/9780110811475/conte...](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2008/9780110811475/contents)

[2] [https://www.asa.org.uk/About-ASA/Our-
history.aspx](https://www.asa.org.uk/About-ASA/Our-history.aspx)

~~~
wdr1
Disclaimer: I work in advertising.

> But what is being passed today as advertising is nothing like that, it is
> more like high school psychological and emotional blackmail. "Here is this
> product. If you don't have it you are not in the ingroup but in the
> outgroup. You are not beautiful enough without this product. People will
> look down on you without this product. This product will make you more
> attractive to the opposite sex and more likely to land a high paying high
> profile job".

I don't understand this. If anything advertising is more transparent today
than ever before.

Consider in the 1800s it wasn't uncommon for a publisher to be paid for a
product & make it seem like they were simply endorsing something they truly
liked.

With the advent of TV, products would be place throughout the show.

Today we have much stricter laws about making it clear a publisher is
promoting a product because they are paid.

> ... the strict sense of the word. "Here is this product. That's how it
> works. That's how it's different from its competitors. Here is the price.
> Here is the total cost of ownership as compared to the competitor. Here is
> how this product can satisfy your needs in this specific case"

Only a very, very small percentage of things are purchased this way.

Why does your friend pay extra for those Louis Vuitton sunglasses? Hint: It's
not because of quality. All sunglasses are basically made by one company.

Why does your friend drink Coke over Pepsi? Hint: It's not because of health
reasons & pretty unlikely it's because of taste.

Why does your friend buy Frosted Flakes instead of the store brand? And so
on...

A lot of it boils down to "brand equity" \-- what you'll pay for a specific
brand over something else. Why do people do that? It's because of the
association, image, and feeling a brand generates. You don't sell diapers by
saying "We sell good diapers." You sell diapers by showing a cute baby with
soft music & get mother's to form an emotional bond with the product.

~~~
verbin217
Wow. You're basically just describing the mechanism by which you're
manipulating people's behavior, very apparently without concern for your
redistribution of inherently finite resources. The opposition to modern
advertising is in response to exactly this. It's not that much different than
cigarettes. You're exploiting subconscious human mechanisms utterly without
concern for any effect except number of purchases. People are better off when
they can _consciously_ think about what they're doing. There are people who
are motivated to promote that in their societies.

~~~
perfTerm
This is totally true, but in a world where there are tens of thousands of
products in our supermarkets alone, sometimes I prefer an easy subconcious
choice. If Old Spice deodorant works, and I got there because of an
advertisement that played on subconcious desires, eh. I don't really have the
desire to conciously evaluate my deodorant purchase (even though I avoid anti
persperants at all cost cause there are weird metals and it just doesn't seem
natural to not perspire).

If I choose Pepsi over Coke because of some subconciously altered motive, eh.
Whatever.

I'm not sure it'll be a popular opinion, but to be honest, I don't
particularly mind not having to conciously evaluate my soda choice.

~~~
azernik
I don't mind either.

What I _do_ mind is the amount of distraction introduced into my environment
in an effort to influence that unconscious and irrelevant choice.

~~~
wdr1
Yep, this is exactly my objection as well.

------
DanAndersen
For quite some time I've felt that advertising/marketing, at least the sort
we've had for the past century or so, is inherently immoral. The fact that
it's a necessary evil in our economic system doesn't stop it from being an
evil.

Modern advertising is not merely informing people about products and what they
do. It's _brain-hacking_ , where advertisers have figured out over decades of
experience, and research into human cognitive biases and failure modes, ways
of presenting the same product, the same information, but getting a desired
response out of the target.

We accept this as a society because we tell ourselves that, as rational human
beings, we have the choice to listen to or reject these messages. But modern
understandings of cognitive biases show how advertising works on deeper
levels, and even works despite us knowing about the tricks that are being used
on us.

The problem is that there's a severe imbalance. Advertisers are getting better
and better at attacking -- at figuring out precisely what makes us tick, down
to the level of pixels on an A/B-tested website.

Are people getting any better at defending themselves? Are people being
trained in dealing with their cognitive biases to make themselves resistant?
Overall, I don't think so. There's no law of nature that says that attackers
and defenders must be equal in strength; the situation we're in right now with
advertising is like medieval warfare with the advent of the crossbow -- a
great imbalance in favor of the attacker that disrupted the nature of combat
for centuries.

~~~
lsc
> the situation we're in right now with advertising is like medieval warfare
> with the advent of the crossbow -- a great imbalance in favor of the
> attacker that disrupted the nature of combat for centuries.

(totally off topic, but)

hm. I thought that the crossbow was a little like the early fireams, in that
it wasn't particularly _better_ than what came before, mostly due to it's
terribly slow rate of fire; it was just easier to use.

My understanding was that someone skilled with a longbow was a more effective
fighter, especially in terms of rate of fire, but also in terms of armor
penetration and range than someone with a crossbow or a early firearm. (my
understanding was that early firearms were massively effective at dealing with
armor at very close ranges, but that effectiveness dropped off very quickly.
Crossbows suffered from similar issues, in a less dramatic sort of way.)

However, becoming really good with a longbow was a serious undertaking, one
that took up a significant portion of your time over a lifetime.

The crossbow and the early firearms, from what I read, were superior in that
you could give them to a bunch of shopkeepers or construction workers or what
have you, have them drill every third Saturday, and have someone who was a
semi-effective warrior when it came time for battle.

back on-topic, I... think there's a hole in our schooling; one the greeks had
down. Rhetoric. Most students don't study it. And most of that manipulation of
other people (at least if you use words) falls under rhetoric.

Incidentally, I am given to understand that rhetoric and logic were often
taught together. Formal logic gets more academic time than rhetoric, I think,
but I think that explicitly teaching logic with rhetoric says important things
about logic and how it ought to be applied to argument. This idea that we need
to apply logic to our arguments before applying rhetoric is a cultural value
that we don't have, that the greeks did. I mean, I'm the first to call the
greeks assholes, and to remind everyone that they had slaves, that they were
not good people and that we should not follow them in all things. But we have
chosen to model our education systems after theirs, and this is one of the
things they did that I think we should do, too.

In fact, I've been looking for a modern academic-ish rhetoric text; all I've
found so far are a bunch of pop psychology style books, while I strongly
prefer a more academic presentation.

But yeah; I think in this case, understanding what other people are doing to
manipulate you is how you disarm them.

~~~
DanAndersen
I agree with you on the importance of rhetoric -- in the sense of really
breaking down what people are saying. Though, I remember being taught some of
that in school and I don't know if it stuck for most students. It's probably a
disconnect between a subject learned for school and tests, and a subject
that's really internalized. A lot of analyzing dusty old essays and historical
arguments, not enough forceful application to one's own modern-day
surroundings.

(And I think you're probably correct about the crossbow bit. The influence it
had was in the manner of making arms more accessible -- hand a peasant a
crossbow and all that. I suppose a different analogy would be World War 1 --
outdated charging tactics coming up against machine guns, though that's a case
where defense had the upper hand over offense.)

~~~
lsc
Most things aren't going to stick for most people. I certainly only retain
some small portion of every book I read. But I do retain some. There is value
in exposure to ideas, I think, even if those ideas don't always take root.

Now, I think we've got a really idealized vision of Greece; Idealized by a
whole chain of different powers who translated their work, so some of this
could be complete bullshit, but from what we read, it sure sounds like they
saw rhetoric and logic as the practical skills one needed to be a pundit, a
talking head, a leader, or even a participating member of a democracy. So...
if we were to give the modern equivalent, we'd teach people about modern
rhetoric more than historical rhetoric. History does have a place, sure, but
it's not a big one. (I... really, really enjoy history, but I think it has
less value that advocates clam to understanding the future. )

There were hippies who talked a lot about how important the connotations of a
particular word are. gah. I'm forgetting the author. But I read all my
parent's stuff when I was a kid, and it made a real impression on me. For a
long time, i would translate everything I heard into the same thing, only
using words with negative connotations, with the idea of inoculating myself
against such a thing, and because for whatever reason, the negative
connotation felt more honest to me than the positive. Less manipulative.

But that's the sort of thing, I think, that people need to think about if they
don't want to be sheep.

------
sergiotapia
Ever since I've read this comic from Zen Pencils, I've taken a hardcore stance
against any and all advertisements. I block everything with ublock origin, and
mute my TV when ads come on.

I've sat down with my kids while they watch TV and it's disgusting just how
much they POUND children with ads to buy toys. The advertising industry is
insidious. Just absolutely hound them! I've seen taken the TV out of their
room and taught them how to use Popcorn Time to watch whatever they want. No
more ads in this house.

[http://zenpencils.com/comic/155-banksy-taking-the-piss-
expli...](http://zenpencils.com/comic/155-banksy-taking-the-piss-explicit/)

~~~
tootie
Popcorn Time is piracy. You can get ad-free TV from legal streaming and PBS.
Amazon and Netflix have tons of kids programming.

~~~
sergiotapia
I'm in South America, a 3rd world country. So it's either piracy or my kids
will be watching Alf on the local TV station.

~~~
fwn
I feel this to be a great example for the tremendous value created by piracy
in modern society.

------
abhv
Our descendants will consider advertising like we consider tobacco: dangerous
to your health.

Adv manipulates your _agency_ , your ability to make independent decisions.
Tracker-based targeted advertising exploits all human vulnerabilities that are
used in "the long con."

Firms that make their money on more sophisticated advertising techniques
understand this. It reminds me of the classic picture of 7 Big-Tobacco
executives swearing to Congress that "tobacco is not addictive" despite
evidence that they internally held reams of documentation from 1960s
indicating the opposite [1].

[1]
[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/settlement/tim...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/settlement/timelines/april94.html)

~~~
dlss
Doesn't all communication count as manipulation of agency? Like, in reading
this I feel swayed... but you didn't cite any facts or research.

~~~
dredmorbius
"Money doesn't talk, it swears." \- Bob Dylan

Scale effects are far too often ignored. The scale effects of highly
concentrated corporate ad purchases are tremendous.

~~~
dlss
I find this reply really confusing.

1\. What were you hoping to accomplish with the Dylan quote? Are you ceding
the agency argument and now asserting that advertising should be banned
because it's obscene?

2\. What scaling effects are we ignoring? You quoted Dylan, someone who
communicated at a very large scale -- do you consider his communication to be
worse on that basis? Is it immoral that we are discussing this on a forum
rather than email?

If your main argument is that you're ideologically opposed to corporate
advertising, why not just say that?

~~~
dredmorbius
It was an illustrative description of the effect of money. That it's not
speech so much as drowning out all else in the room.

If you prefer quantitative rather than qualitative results, this article on a
recent Princeton University study on the influence of money in political
policy:

"Study: Congress literally doesn’t care what you think"
[https://represent.us/action/theproblem-4/](https://represent.us/action/theproblem-4/)

 _Professors Martin Gilens (Princeton University) and Benjamin I. Page
(Northwestern University) looked at more than 20 years worth of data to answer
a simple question: Does the government represent the people?_

 _Their study took data from nearly 2000 public opinion surveys and compared
it to the policies that ended up becoming law. In other words, they compared
what the public wanted to what the government actually did. What they found
was extremely unsettling: The opinions of 90% of Americans have essentially no
impact at all._

...

 _“The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule,
near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”_

 _One thing that does have an influence? Money. While the opinions of the
bottom 90% of income earners in America have a “statistically non-significant
impact,” Economic elites, business interests, and people who can afford
lobbyists still carry major influence._

Similarly, money bought decades of protection for the tobacco industry -- the
medical link between smoking and cancer was established _in the 1940s._

By, as it happens, Nazi Germany...
[http://www.jpands.org/hacienda/edcor5.html](http://www.jpands.org/hacienda/edcor5.html)

(So, yes, there's a literal truth to the complaints of some smokers about
anti-smoking Nazis...).

Or, in the case of lead added to paint and gasoline, an understanding dating
to the late _eighteenth_ century, at least (though earlier understanding of
harms dates back to 2000 BC), of the negative health consequences of lead, the
harms from paint (up to 50% lead by weight) by the early 20th century. The
"Dutch Boy" paint brand was adopted by National Lead Company (now NL
Industries, Dutch Boy was sold to Sherwin-Williams in 1980). Or asbestos. Or
CFCs. Or CO₂ and global warming. Or sugar, corn syrup, and diabetes.

Robert N. Proctor calls this "agnotology": culturally _induced_ ignorance.
It's _only_ possible due to the scale of spending behind such disinformation.
Millions to billions of dollars, over time.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnotology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnotology)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2363bo/agnotol...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2363bo/agnotology_culturally_induced_ignorance/)

While that's only a part of the problem with advertising, it's a large one.

I've mentioned Jerry Mander's _Four Arguments for the Elimination of
Television_ , which deals heavily with advertising, and Neil Postman's
_Amusing Ourselves to Death_. I recommend both, strongly.

Also Adam Curtis's _Century of the Self_ documentary.

------
chjohasbrouck
Advertisements are pure deception, and every time a consumer is exposed to
one, the consumer loses and the advertiser gains. Having that opinion makes me
a member of a tiny minority in America.

I remember hearing on NPR about a study some marketers conducted. They
surveyed college classes in the U.S. They asked students in person to raise
their hands if they felt their purchasing decisions were influenced by
advertising. Almost nobody raised their hands. They also observed that many of
those who didn't raise their hands were wearing branded clothes and hats at
the time (and not the clothing's brand, completely unrelated brands like
Monster energy drink). This means that even when advertisers have successfully
converted one of their targets into a walking human advertisement, their
target remains convinced that the advertiser has had no influence over them
whatsoever.

So if your goal is to diminish advertising, that's what you're up against. The
victimized not only don't realize that they're being victimized, but will also
defend the rights of the victimizer to continue victimizing them as a matter
of free speech.

~~~
orangecat
_They surveyed college classes in the U.S. They asked students in person to
raise their hands if they felt their purchasing decisions were influenced by
advertising. Almost nobody raised their hands. They also observed that many of
those who didn 't raise their hands were wearing branded clothes and hats at
the time_

I do believe that people are often more affected by advertising than they
believe, but this anecdote doesn't establish that. You'd have to show that
they wouldn't have bought the clothes without the branding.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
That's hardly difficult. Why do people buy branded clothes when no-label
clothes of equivalent quality are available at much lower cost?

What else except branding justifies the ticket on a $5000 handbag? Even if you
accept the fact that it's (allegedly) hand-made from the finest raw materials,
the BOM and labour cost a negligible fraction of the consumer price.

And here's the real problem - people think they're buying handbags, clothes,
cars, and computers, but really they're just buying capitalist fetish objects.

Advertising doesn't sell stuff, it sells a distorted and rather mad morality
where conspicuous wealth and status display is the ultimate moral good.

Should we question that? Damn right we should. It's effectively a repackaging
of the religious mode of discourse with a novel moral payload, and it's as
destructive to rational freedom of thought as any other religion.

~~~
dredmorbius
Veblen goods.

------
cies
Oh boy I love this thought. I think very bad of advertising in public spaces.
Was there ever a public discussion on this topic before bill-boards became the
norm. Even in semi public spaces, likes the 20 or so Dutch TV channels people
receive I feel that it is reason enough not to own a cable connection at all.

But... I would not make it illegal, but very heavily taxed. Tax billboards for
95% out of this world because they are disgusting (that 5% might give us 50%
of the current tax income), tax companies into only having small logo's on
their buildings and into sponsoring events/art/archtecture/etc.

Focus, awareness, peace of mind, not selling out, "outside and inside come in
pairs".

~~~
Renaud
Said it elsewhere, but there is an interesting experiment in one city in
France where the new mayor removed all billboards from the city's grounds.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/1125...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11250670/Grenoble-
to-replace-street-advertising-with-trees-and-community-spaces.html)

------
tootie
You know what other part sucks? The number of brilliant, creative people who
create ads instead of useful things.

~~~
punee
Yes. Creative people creating ads are paid billions in fees every year to make
useless things. Businesses buying advertising are just that stupid. They love
to spend money on useless things instead of useful ones. I mean, who doesn't?

------
jrapdx3
In the medical practice world, marketing of pharmaceuticals has been an
incendiary subject for some time. The common gist has been that medical
practitioners are too easily influenced and merely hearing what a pharma
company rep has to say will lead to inappropriate prescribing.

On such grounds many clinics forbid manufacturers' reps to have access to
staff, else they would be tainted. Of course they'd be, a dozen years of
training and 20 years on the front lines mean nothing, really, prescribers are
clearly unable to know a sales pitch when they hear it, incapable of applying
their own judgement concerning a product's merit.

Sure, there are instances where pharma firms have been unethical, but in my
dealings with them, reps have mostly stayed within the lines. In case they
don't, I'm not that delicate and can deal with overzealousness when necessary.
Generally, it's a two-way interaction, I listen to what reps have to say, and
the better ones listen to my feedback about clinical realities.

One thing that gets lost in the noisy public discourse is the role of
marketing. In our economic system marketing is fundamental to distribution of
goods and services. A pharma company could develop a break-through product,
but if providers don't know of its existence it won't be used where it would
make a difference.

Inadequate marketing has impeded uptake of a number of useful medications, and
fewer treatment options is not a good thing. I'm not advocating a free-for-all
in this sphere, rules are necessary. But we can have too many rules too,
better to maintain an intelligent balance.

Sometimes I think about an interesting experiment: what if _all_ advertising
had to follow the same rules as pharmaceutical companies? Imagine a car
commercial on TV, and the announcer having to murmur a list of all the defects
reported for the car's vehicle class. You know, real truth in advertising
would be very refreshing.

------
conanbatt
I find the concept of paying people for their information and time fantastic
as way to battle advertising.

In other ways, wouldnt it be great to have the right to not be subject to
advertising? Adblock has been great at providing such experience on the web to
me..how about billboards? TV? Eliminate product integration? Etc.

I dont like using the word "moral" to describe a problem, because it makes it
very subjective. The amount of money that goes into advertising is ridiculous
and in aggregate it has to be doing lots of damage by opportunity cost and
mis-information.

~~~
qu4z-2
You can't really define "damage" without reference to a moral framework,
though. It is somewhat inherently a moral question.

------
imakesnowflakes
I have asked here about this in the past [1]

I am not sure regulations will help much. For one thing, is is hard to specify
where the limits lie, and to objectively detect when an ad cross the limits.
Another thing is that all regulations bend depending on how much money you
have to throw at those. And in this case it is a lot.

So along with regulations, I think it is also necessary to educate kids to
defend against manipulations like this. I don't think schools will ever do
something like this. So it should come from parents, from home. Teach them how
such manipulations work, teach them how to recognize and avoid them. In the
process, you will also teach them very useful critical thinking.

But there may be social aspects that work against these. For example, if you
never watch ads in your home, your kid may get ridiculed in the school because
he/she does not know about Ad xyz. The same way you will be ridiculed today
for not using Facebook or whatsapp.

So, in short, I think we should talk about this, A LOT. Both online and
offline.

Build a public awareness.

Make it cool, to NOT watch ads.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9690432](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9690432)

------
cvg
Ironically enough, it may be CPC ads themselves that allow people protect
their attention. Browser add ons like Ad Nauseam,
[http://adnauseam.io/](http://adnauseam.io/), automatically click on ads
(after first being blocked) and ensure that there's a high price to pay for
playing in the ad game.

~~~
bitJericho
Too bad they don's support ublock origin. I don't use ABP anymore because they
allow "acceptable" ads.

------
spodek
Banksy and peers, in a different medium, have been making many of these
arguments for some time, in my opinion eloquently. They got me thinking about
many of these issues of who gets to speak to the public and how do we decide,
in ways I hadn't before.

------
jfoster
The article states: "The advertising industry consists of the buying and
selling of your attention between third parties without your consent."

Mostly, I don't think that's true. When I turn on the TV to watch a show, I
think I am consenting to some advertising being present, and naturally the TV
station has sold that advertising time to some other company. Similar
situation with websites, search engines, radio, newspapers, etc.

The only situation where I think the assertion might be true is when it comes
to advertising in public areas, outdoors, etc. I don't think it's reasonable
to argue that consent has been given in those circumstances.

~~~
cronjobber
The article agrees with you: "Although consumers are not the customers of
television companies, they ... have substantial influence over the
transaction, and the quid pro quo for them is transparent"

BTW, both the article and the HN comment section make me realize that as
someone not living in the US, I lead a sheltered life. The level of
advertising to "captured audiences" in the US seems to have reached truly
mind-killing proportions.

FTA: "Advertising to children in America has increased more than 150 fold
since the early 1980s, especially inside schools where the audience is
captive."

~~~
kwhitefoot
Inside schools? Why is there any advertising inside schools?

------
drewmeyers24
Definitely not the largest fan of online advertising -->
[http://www.drewmeyersinsights.com/2013/08/24/my-problem-
with...](http://www.drewmeyersinsights.com/2013/08/24/my-problem-with-online-
ads/)

It's at the heart of the time suck economy we live in today (and which gets
worse everyday): [http://www.geekwire.com/2013/time-suck-economy-starting-
buil...](http://www.geekwire.com/2013/time-suck-economy-starting-building/)

------
InclinedPlane
Advertising isn't just about business, if it were ìt'd be a lot more effective
and less obnoxious. It's also about power. Being able to control what people
see and listen to is powerful. Being able to inject your brand into the public
consciousness is powerful. Many brands are familiar to us, and form a part of
the culture background, because of advertising, regardless of if we use them.

This makes companies and advertisers feel good, because it's a demonstration
of power, and of status.

------
holri
Advertising makes as unhappy or poor. It creates artificial tangible desires
for needless goods. Unfulfilled desire makes us unhappy. Buying needless and
worthless goods poor.

------
jmount
Upton Sinclair — 'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when
his salary depends on his not understanding it.'

~~~
punee
Is this in reference to people who are software engineers who work for big
businesses that are mostly marketing, sales and advertising driven and who
would not have a job if it weren't for what they're criticizing in this
thread?

~~~
dredmorbius
Not parent, but I'd argue generally Yes. Moreover it's an excellent dynamic to
keep in mind when you're encountering strong resistance from someone. Often
there's either a conflict of interest or cognitive dissonance at play.

------
davemel37
This why there are no billionaire philosophers. Every argument he made about
advertising i can make about his article, and about every interaction he had
in his entire life with everyone he ever met. Just because economics are in
play with advertising doesnt mean that everything and everyone else in the
world shouldnt be held to the same standards.

Contrary to what this article claims...people do value their attention and are
very particular and careful with how they allocate it. Good marketers also
know how valuable peoples attention is and are careful to respect it...hence
the rise of content marketing and value add advertising.

The argument that consumers dont give media permission to sell their attention
is false. You can always change the channel, click away, drive a different
route, and stop using an app. You make choices about how you allocate your
attention and you accept the costs associated with it by allocating your
attention to that media.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
> This why there are no billionaire philosophers.

Becoming a billionaire requires being unethical in this society. The mere
existence of billionaires is a problem, anyway. So of course people who care
about ethics do not become billionaires.

Is that the fault of the people with ethical concerns? No, it is a damning
statement about our society.

~~~
davemel37
Want to know the only difference between your ethics and a billionaires
ethics? Your ethics look to the world and others to assign blame and
criticize...billionaires look to themselves to see how they can improve and
grow despite circumstances outside themselves and beyond their control.

I might not be a billionaire...but i definitely dont want to be someone who
cant take ownership my own problems.

------
jqm
I often feel a bit sorry for advertisers and consider they are simply wasting
their money and effort. I have no more inclination to buy a car I saw parked
on top of a giant rock on TV than I did before I saw the ad. I have no more
inclination to drink a coke than I did before I saw the ad. The only ad I
remember following or taking an interest in within recent memory was for a
drone on youtube. Out of the thousands and thousands seen over the past
decade. I realize maybe I'm not typical... but I simply can't fathom how
commercials for things like shampoo on TV impress anyone. Are people really
still susceptible in this day and age? I just don't get it.

------
jccalhoun
I'm quite surprised to see so many here seem to agree with the idea that
advertising is seemingly inherently bad. This article in particular is full of
over-the-top writing that drives me crazy.

"advertising imposes costs on individuals without permission or compensation.
It extracts our precious attention and emits toxic by-products, such as the
sale of our personal information to dodgy third parties."

I wish my life was that important that my attention not only could be
"precious" but that it was so precious that that I'm worried about the demands
ads make on my attention instead of other things (like staying up too late
making comments on web sites...).

------
panic
It's insane that advertisement spending is tax deductible (at least in the US)
given how questionable its impact to society is. A slight change to the tax
code would cut down on ads considerably.

~~~
achamayou
Same as every other business expense, it's not like it's got a special status.

------
superuser2
Products and services not directly necessary for sustenance exist only because
of advertising.

If you are employed in an industry other than agriculture, textiles, or
residential construction, there would be _no_ work for you or any of your
coworkers without advertising. If people's basic urges do not require them to
give you money, then there is no money with which to write your paycheck.

Obviously it can be taken too far, but eliminating advertising from the world
in all forms is probably not what you want.

~~~
drdeca
I don't understand how you reach the conclusion that people would not purchase
products that they do not need to live if not for advertisements.

Would you mind explaining your reasoning for that?

~~~
superuser2
Sure. Advertising is the craft of getting people to want things, then
positioning a particular product as the best (or only) way to satisfy that
want.

If you want something not embedded in your biology (i.e. food, sex,
temperature regulation) then you want it because of advertising - either media
you were exposed to, people who influenced you to want it, or just seeing the
product out in the street. If you are aware of a particular product or vendor
_at all_ , it is because of advertising.

Of the people in the world who are economically useful, they are useful only
insofar as as people want the things they help produce. Without advertising,
people want only food, shelter, water, sex, etc. Without advertising, people
are entirely unaware of where they can exchange money for _anything_ they
want, biologically necessary or not.

A world without advertising is a world without trade. The only way that could
ever really happen is a centrally planned economy with resources handed out;
the second you have something resembling a market, the way sellers and buyers
discover each other is advertising.

~~~
qu4z-2
Hm. If I understand you correctly, you're saying that children would not want
to be told stories, without advertising?

I mean, I agree people need to be aware of a good or service to buy it (and
that includes food, sex, and temperature regulation -- not sure why you've got
a special case for them). But I think there's a distinction between making
that information available for people seeking things out (like, having a stall
at a market that carries your product) and bombarding people with messages
about it at all hours of the day.

~~~
superuser2
Advertising to people with intent to buy is still advertising, just the most
lucrative and expensive kind.

------
constantx
spam is bad, advertising is necessary to spread "product", just like how
newspaper is necessary to spread news

------
MaxScheiber
This article has quite a cynical tone that I can't say I agree with. The
argument that advertising is the business of harvesting customers' attention,
while not necessarily incorrect, is disingenuous. The ad industry is not some
diabolical entity that conspires to brainwash citizens of the world.

I would posit that the advertising market is actually quite efficient as
opposed to being a market failure. Let's examine a paragraph from the market
failure section:

> Movie theatres, cable channels, phone apps, bill-board operators, and so on
> price the sale of your attention at what it takes to extract it from you -
> namely, how easy it is for you to escape their predations. This is often
> much lower than the value to you, or to others, of directing your attention
> to something else.

The author makes the implicit assumption that advertisements automatically
garner 100% of our attention. They don't. When was the last time you went to a
movie theater before the previews started, sat silently, and stared at the
advert loop? You probably have never done that! Instead, you give your
attention to your loved ones or your phone. And maybe you'll watch the
previews, but if you're even somewhat into watching newly released movies,
those add value to you.

Some advertisements _do_ capture our attention, and those are priced
appropriately. Super Bowl commercials cost more on a CPM basis than a
commercial to be aired during the Walking Dead, which in turn costs more than
an Instagram sponsored story. This is the sign of an efficient market, not a
market failure.

Moreover, people do avoid advertisements when they deem it necessary. Some
people buy the premium versions of iPhone applications, some people only watch
new TV shows on Netflix, and some people pay extra to watch live sports events
on an ad-free Internet stream. Again, this is the sign of an efficient market,
not a market failure.

You could, instead, possibly make the argument that advertising is a
prisoner's dilemma. Perhaps the world would be better off without advertising.
(I'm not even sure that this is true, given that advertising does benefit
people.) But if there are no advertisements and a single company ran a TV
spot, it would be at a huge competitive advantage. So everyone runs marketing
campaigns. I really think this benefits the consumer more than the author
gives credit for, however. Marketing is the field of creating value for a
specific segment of the population, who in turn will enter into a long-term
relationship with your firm and give you economic value in return. Advertising
is an important part of this.

Also, to be clear, I don't advocate for marketing strategies that themselves
are disingenuous. Moreover, there are perfectly valid arguments to make that
inference-based advertising are immoral, or that Internet tracking is immoral.
But the author is painting with absolutely massive brush strokes against the
entire field of "advertising," and I feel the need to strongly qualify his
argument.

There's a lot I want to say about this piece, because it seems that the author
fundamentally misunderstands marketing. The entire bit about advertisers
charging consumers directly is a terrible business idea, for example, for the
same reason that we have grocery stores and shopping malls. However, I don't
really want to spend all afternoon on a point-by-point response.

~~~
abhv
>The ad industry is not some diabolical entity that conspires to brainwash
citizens of the world.

Yes, this is exactly the point.

Advertising is most certainly a "negative externality." Its cost is not fully
borne by the firm, but rather imposed on intermediaries and externals. For
example, there is _no cost_ to the advertising firm for promoting blatantly
incorrect or dangerous statements that must latter be corrected through costly
education.

See for example the statistics about sugary-beverage advertising, and how
society must ultimately pay for the health consequences [1].

>You could, instead, possibly make the argument that advertising is a
prisoner's dilemma.

Advertising is not an issue of prisoner's dilemma (in which two players who
_benefit_ from cooperation are driven instead by rationality towards
destructive outcomes).

It is more similar to a problem with asymmetrical information, i.e. the
"market for lemmons." All of the posts in this thread about how "advertising
is helpful for bringing information to the people who are looking for it" are
talking about the very few instances of advertising improving the efficiency
of an information marketplace. Instead, the marketplace is full of "lemmons,"
i.e. instances of advertising that are not aligned with true information flow,
but with manipulation. The ad market is like shopping for used cars. Use
caution.

[1] [https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/sugary-
drinks-f...](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/sugary-drinks-fact-
sheet/)

~~~
MaxScheiber
> For example, there is no cost to the advertising firm for promoting
> blatantly incorrect or dangerous statements that must latter be corrected
> through costly education.

I disagree somewhat, as there is certainly a regulatory cost. Now whether
FINRA is stringent enough is an entirely different question, and one that
would be more fruitful to discuss.

Moreover, you'll see toward the bottom of my original comment that I don't
think misleading advertising is a good thing. My comment mostly dealt with the
author's discussion of consumer attention as a resource, to which I strongly
disagree that there are externalities.

> Advertising is not an issue of prisoner's dilemma (in which two players who
> benefit from cooperation are driven instead by rationality towards
> destructive outcomes).

I defined cooperation to be a firm not advertising and defection to be a firm
advertising. It certainly seems like the definition of a prisoner's dilemma to
me under the way I'd set it up. But we're free to disagree. I agree that this
is an asymmetrical information issue, but that quite literally applies to the
entire business world.

------
vonklaus
ok, wow. First, let me point out how ironic it is that a news agency that
makes most of it's revenue from advertising is the source of this article, and
also that ABC is owned by Disney corp which is a pervasive media company
creating advertising, receiving revenue from advertising and spends over 2
Billion annually on advertising[0][1].

Services we use daily are funded by advertising. Virtually all news and media
companies. Sure, it is a bit nefarious to do some of the things that get done
on the internet like trackers and info siloing and such, but seriously? Is not
seeing an advert a moral imperative?

> I want to keep using this free email, social network, enhanced and
> personalized search capability, free cloud storage, document collaboration,
> real time news updates, weather, be entertained by television, be
> entertained by blogs, participate in an online community, etc

ok awesome, pay us money then, $1 a month per website/service you use?

> no

Or even the more infuriating, of course I would do that. Would you? Would you
pay for google, facebook, twitter, reddit, HN, new york times, bloomberg?
Maybe, but how much would you pay to that website your friend linked in an
email? How many of you have apps or work at companies that get paid by advert
revenue?

In a world where is is insanely easy to block ads, or to just ignore them,
surely this isn't a question of morality. More of triviality and annoyance. I
have 3 adblock extensions + uBlock as well as a DNS killer. I HATE ads. The
reason ads are so annoying is because I have all of these things. So now
companies search exploits to get my data to sell it and load tons of JS
libraries to break through all of the blocking software I have. The situation
sucks, but it isn't morality.

tl;dr If you think Axe body spray will get you laid, you are weak minded.
Advertising pays for everything you use on the internet, and entrenched
protocols are hard to disrupt. Get adblock, ublock and don't buy things you
don't need.

[0][http://www.businessinsider.com/the-35-companies-that-
spent-1...](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-35-companies-that-
spent-1-billion-on-ads-in-2011-2012-11?op=1) [1]I still think comcast is a
shitty company

edit: As pointed out NBC is owned by comcast, ABC is owned by Disney
corporation and I have edited to reflect that.

~~~
Sven7
"Entrenched protocols" like slavery got disrupted precisely because a moral
dimension was brought into play.

Everybody has weaknesses and exploiting them to sell ads is no more an art -
it's a science - that is working at a speed and scale that we have never
witnessed before. Advertising is more than just selling body spray. It's about
selling anything to us - from our leaders to wars to taxes. I wont be
surprised if ISIS is buying FB ads - target muslim youths in low income
downtown areas - ad tech can do that for you today.

The same BMW in Europe is marketing car clubs and car pooling to save the
planet, while in China and India the message is total opposite about
aspiration and horsepower.

Morality has to be talked about.

~~~
vonklaus
I almost feel like you are saying that forcibly exfiltrating someone from
their land, packing them into a ship where ~15-30% die before even getting the
"privilege" of being sold onto bondage[0] and serve the rest of their lives as
property is remotely comparable to a person using gmail for free but retaining
any right for such a company to profit from that data(which you freely give
them)?

> Morality has to be talked about.

Logic has to be talked about. Your privacy and attention are your own
imperative and outsourcing that is a fatal mistake. You will see adverts on a
few trashcans but that is the price you pay for living in society. The choice
is yours whether you want to sell your information to companies, you provide
it, you have agency, stop.

[0][http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&p...](http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=446)

~~~
Dylan16807
You're going a bit far there in protest of an analogy.

Even someone who supports slavery would likely be against kidnapping and
mistreatment.

But why are you suddenly talking about corporate data use? Advertising happens
with or without that data.

There's no real opting out of ads.

~~~
vonklaus
> Even someone who supports slavery would likely be against kidnapping and
> mistreatment.

I mean, they didn't just show up one day. But yeah, I just met hyperbole with
hyperbole.

> But why are you suddenly talking about corporate data use? Advertising
> happens with or without that data.

I think you can opt out of a lot of ads. I don't watch television often and as
stated have a large amount of blocking software installed. I don't read
magazines and have limited exposure to billboards as I live in a rural areas.

Data is the scary bit and it was mentioned in the article. Selling user data
is morally ambiguous. Gun to my head, I come down on the side that it is
probably wrong. Seeing an ad briefly while you steal a taylor swift song off
youtube is different than the permanence of someone owning a silo of your
personal intimate data.

Also, this data is used to create a profile of you which (outside of the 1984
scenario) is used to sell you adverts. This is pretty shitty. Once again, I
try to maintain my own privacy on the internet and try to safeguard my data as
much as possible and while I think it is a shitty practice, I think people
should be responsible for themselves.

------
obstinate
Depends on your system of morality. For example, you could have a system of
morality that has the axiom: "advertising is inherently bad." In this case,
it's hard to imagine it would be justifiable. An opposite system of morality
also exists, of course, that says advertising is inherently good.

Since there is no objective standard of morality, and since "morality" is just
a fancy word for "things that people consider good or bad," we probably just
have to look out into the world and see whether advertising is against the
morals of most. Given that we see little great outrage over the use of
advertising, even among those who are aware of its risks, I have to conclude
that advertising is morally justifiable.

~~~
johnchristopher
> _Since there is no objective standard of morality, and since "morality" is
> just a fancy word for "things that people consider good or bad," _ we
> probably just have to look out into the world and see whether advertising is
> against the morals of most. Given that we see little great outrage over the
> use of advertising, even among those who are aware of its risks, I have to
> conclude that advertising is morally justifiable.

This is a bold statement ( _italics_ ) and you run into a circular reasoning
by the end of that sentence (advertising is morally justifiable because some
people are okay with it). May I suggest the following summer read:
[http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Tribes-Emotion-Reason-
Between/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Tribes-Emotion-Reason-
Between/dp/0143126059/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=) and
[http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/17/moral-tribes-
jo...](http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/17/moral-tribes-joshua-
greene-review) and then [http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115279/joshua-
greenes-mor...](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115279/joshua-greenes-
moral-tribes-reviewed-thomas-nagel)

