• Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      So how do people get on the internet or in the store? Heck, how do you know that the store exists in the first place (and if the store doesn’t have what you need, what do you do?)

      I’m just after a middle ground - the current insanity of advertising is obviously too much, but the idea of doing away with it entirely isn’t feasible either. Burning all the advertising execs at the stake might be a good place to start in terms of reforming things…

      • Vogi@piefed.social
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        3 hours ago

        Normally I look stores up using OSM and I believe I found my ISP through an comparison portal. Sure there could be advertisement involved and I definitely bought many things because of it. I just don’t think we would need that in any way and that the quality of life would even go up if we banned all advertisement.

        Its definitely not feasible, at least not in our life times. In my city there was a citizen initiative to ban a lot of public advertisements which did not went through as there were not enough people signing up. So apparently we are not ready for that yet. Burning all the advertising execs does sound like a sensible thing to do though :) Lets settle on that.

        • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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          4 hours ago

          Relevant XKCD:

          The value of word of mouth advertising is the reason we have to deal with the hell that is astroturfing ad campaigns.

          • Delilah@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            3 hours ago

            Not all word of mouth is advertising. While word mouth advertising is powerful, that argument is still just a straw man.

            • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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              3 hours ago

              This seems like it’s not going to be a productive conversation if you’re going to accuse me of using a strawman argument.

              All word of mouth advertising is advertising. You’re advertising that you like something to your friends. That it’s viewed as “not advertising” by so many is the reason it’s so valuable, and why so much effort is being expended to manufacture and subvert it, since it’s one of the last forms left people aren’t super conscious of. “Telling other people about the thing” is the oldest and most basic form of advertising, but it’s still advertising, and people have worked to exploit it since the earliest records we have. Hell, even Ea Nasir advertised via word-of-mouth.

              • drosophila@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                2 hours ago

                This seems like it’s not going to be a productive conversation if you’re going to accuse me of using a strawman argument.

                It seems like its not going to go anywhere because you think of all human communication as an act of manipulation.

                • LurkingLuddite@piefed.social
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                  1 hour ago

                  Not all advertising is manipulation. The convo is going nowhere because you are No True Scotsmanning the definition of “advertisement”.

                  If you’re dropping a name of a product or service and describe anything about it to appeal to others, you are definitionally advertising.