A product which needs help beyond its own merits to make a sale likely doesn't meet most people's definition of quality.
Genuinely fantastic products spread like wildfire on their own, without paid promotion.
I'd love to live in a world where there's no advertising and so therefore the only products available have to be genuinely fantastic.
I can't see a downside - just as many products will still be needed for just as many people, so it shouldn't affect the economy negatively.
What would happen is we would evolve faster and have more safety, reliability, productivity etc. The lack of useless junk polluting the planet would be yet another positive.
> A product which needs help beyond its own merits to make a sale likely doesn't meet most people's definition of quality.
How does the customer know anything about its merits if they've never heard of it?
> Genuinely fantastic products spread like wildfire on their own, without paid promotion.
What if it's not world changing product, it's just a new normal competitor in an existing market whose product is 2% better than average? Or is exactly average, but it costs slightly less? Don't we still want these things?
> I can't see a downside - just as many products will still be needed for just as many people, so it shouldn't affect the economy negatively.
An obvious downside is that it gives an even bigger advantage to incumbents with a known brand.
>How does the customer know anything about its merits if they've never heard of it?
They buy it and try it out. How do you think most things sell? It isn't advertising! When I go to the supermarket, I know they have food and home supplies. If you sell one of those things, get it on a shelf. My supermarket literally has tiny batch products from local cottage industry. If I need hardware, I know I can get it at lowes or Home Depot. I didn't need any advertising to know that a place that says "Hardware store" on the sign will sell hardware!
>What if it's not world changing product, it's just a new normal competitor in an existing market whose product is 2% better than average? Or is exactly average, but it costs slightly less? Don't we still want these things?
This will entirely occupy all conversation of most normal people. People LOVE to talk about their shit that is slightly better than the same shit you buy. People LOVE to tell friends and family and strangers about this product they bought that is just slightly different.
>An obvious downside is that it gives an even bigger advantage to incumbents with a known brand.
Which is why Coca-Cola still advertises right? Because advertising only helps those just getting started in selling a brand new product?
Not sure why you so desperately try to find some moral justification for advertising, having the skin in the game like many in HN?
Its literally manipulation of those who have money to spend them on product they otherwise wouldn't, has absolutely 0 relationship on quality on the product (in extreme cases it goes directly against it). Word of mouth, unbiased reviews (yes, they cost something to keep the interference away but save you tons of money and time down the line). Its 2024, we are more connected than we probably should be. Manipulation always = lies, it doesn't matter how you wrap them around. We all have moral compass (barring sociopaths/psychopaths et al), and we all have opinion on such behavior.
Sure its like nuclear armament, once one does it many feel they also need to do it. But its purely emotional business on both ends (customers and companies feeling the need to pay for ads), where literally the only person truly winning is the advertiser (something about selling shovels during gold rush). Mankind as it is only loses, I don't see any way its morally justifiable. Even having less services say online available for free ain't a losing proposition if you look at long term damage of advertising.
> Its literally manipulation of those who have money to spend them on product they otherwise wouldn't, has absolutely 0 relationship on quality on the product (in extreme cases it goes directly against it).
This is an extremely strong claim. Certainly you'd concede that some ads contain truthful information. Like there exists at least one ad that is true. So then how is it "manipulation" for someone to post that information in a public space?
We jumped from "billboards are ugly" to "ads are categorically evil," and based on some pretty strong assumptions.
> Word of mouth, unbiased reviews (yes, they cost something to keep the interference away but save you tons of money and time down the line).
Okay, so how do you get the first person to buy your product if advertising is illegal? The base case would seem to require it. Same goes for "independent reviews." How do you find the independent reviewer? And this is ignoring getting a critical mass of customers for word of mouth to even work.
> This is an extremely strong claim. Certainly you'd concede that some ads contain truthful information. Like there exists at least one ad that is true.
Conversely, I find this a weak claim. If most major uses of something are negative, one minor positive use does not trump the negative.
And even if a billboard is 100% factual, that does not necessarily means it’s a net positive to have constant visual pollution for something you may not even buy.
One caveat being, some high quality things really do get drowned out or conceptually polluted by loudly advertised crap. It's a tangly problem that's for sure
Genuinely fantastic products spread like wildfire on their own, without paid promotion.
I'd love to live in a world where there's no advertising and so therefore the only products available have to be genuinely fantastic.
I can't see a downside - just as many products will still be needed for just as many people, so it shouldn't affect the economy negatively.
What would happen is we would evolve faster and have more safety, reliability, productivity etc. The lack of useless junk polluting the planet would be yet another positive.
Advertising is a net negative on human evolution.