Originally Posted by
Astaroth
Note that this thread is about a political utopia, so complaints a la "big business would never allow this" or "this won't ever happen" miss the mark.
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I. What are ads?
What are ads? Ads originally stem from the desire of businesses to make the consumer aware of their products. Before modern times, ads weren't anything close to what they are today, but signs outside stores, leaflets, mouth-to-mouth propaganda and the likes have been around forever.
In a way, the basic concept of advertisement makes sense -- as a consumer, you are generally looking for the best product at the cheapest price and are looking for information about the available products. As a business, you want consumers to know about your product and choose it about others. Particularly newer businesses need to make potential customers aware of their existence. Win-win, right? Originally, sure.
However, unfortunately, this is not how ads operate anymore and it is not how they have worked for decades, if not centuries. Ads are no longer a useful means of informing (if they ever truly were, eh) customers or allowing newcomers to enter a market. Most new companies could never afford big ad campaigns. If anything, ads are now used primarily to cement the existing power structures in the market (you always see the same top X companies put ads all over the place, on billboards, TV, the internet etc.).
That in itself might not be the biggest problem, although it stiffles competition when the consumer will always know the well-advertised product better and usually choose it over "no-name" brands.
The problem lies somewhere else. But before that, let's give a brief overview of the supposed positive sides of ads. What's so good about them, really?
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II. What's good about ads?
Essentially, ads allow for much of the modern entertainment industry to function. Sports, movies, TV, the internet -- all of these primarily rely on advertising money. In a way, that's great - people get to consume so much free stuff and only have to watch a few ads, right?! Free superbowl! Free TV shows! Free sports events! Free internet sites! Free Youtube videos! Awesomesauce. Only have to watch a few minutes of more or less annoying ads every day, eh?
The problem is, none of that content is really free. And this is where the problem lies:
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III. What's the problem with ads?
Humans hate having to pay for something. Well, duh. But what they really hate is having to DIRECTLY pay for something. If I know that if I have to pay you X amount of money to receive product Y, I might consider it carefully. But if the cost is INDIRECT to me, I might either a) not know/notice in the first place or b) not think about it because it's too far away, too complicated, too abstract. Abstract thinking, considering the future etc. -- that is difficult for most people.
This is why credit cards et al are such a problem - why save up till next year if I can buy that TV now, no problem?
In short: direct costs = bad (who wants to pay cash?). Indirect costs = meh, I'll think about it (if at all) when I get there.
Ads function the exact same way. Ads are nothing but an indirect cost to the consumer. Watching ads is ultimately no different from directly paying money for a service -- the money only takes longer to circulate and takes a more roundabout way. Of course this might not be so surprising to many, but knowing how people will reply to this topic, I'm pretty sure this is not exactly common knowledge. Here are the top two misunderstandings, misconceptions and myths about ads that people always, without fail, repeat in conversations about ads:
1) What's so bad about ads? They are only a mild annoyance, you just have to watch them for a few seconds or minutes. I'd rather watch ads than pay for viewing that site/watching that TV show/consuming service X.
This is probably the biggest misconception here. Let's pause for a second -- many people seem to have this image that ads are just a mild annoyance, that their main downside is irritating the viewer. But look - we live in a capitalistic society. Nothing is for free. What interest would a company have in annoying you, the viewer? Why on earth would they spend millions or billions on ads if they had no clear, causal benefit from this?
And this is where the answer lies: companies directly benefit from their ads, they directly make money BECAUSE of the ads. If they didn't, ads wouldn't exist. Again, capitalism. Now, where does that money, that ends up (more than) paying for the ads, come from? Obvious: from the customer/consumer. The same consumer who watched the ad.
In short, the average viewer will buy a product BECAUSE he watched the ad (otherwise the ad wouldn't exist, see above). How does this work? Because the ad is so informative and the product so superior? Naw. Ads mostly work on a manipulative, subconscious level. Creating a small or big desire for a product that may lurk underneath the surface and only come out later. Ads don't work in a "I just saw this, I MUST buy it" way. Few people are that stupid. Nonetheless, they do work.
In other words, by allowing the company to show you an ad, you are allowing them to manipulate your mind and subconscious, causing you (again, on average) to ultimately buy the product. This means that there is ultimately no difference between paying 10 $/month for a pay-TV channel or watching a "free" TV channel that works via advertising, because in the latter case the money to finance the shows is paid by the viewer as well, just in the more roundabout way via ads.
But what makes ads that much more problematic is how shady their business model is. Few people really understand it (or think about it regularly) and almost nobody is immune to them. If there is a pay-TV channel, you can CHOOSE to pay 10 $/month for the service. However, if the channel is "free", you still pay -- but often without knowing, thinking that ads are really only a mild annoyance on the side. They aren't. They are meant to manipulate and they are very successful at it.
2) The second biggest misconception and reason why ads are rarely ever talked about as a problem is this: Most people think "they are too smart for ads to work on them" or "if an ad is annoying, I'll make a point not to buy the product".
The problem is, again, capitalism: The proof is in the pudding -- if the average person did not "fall for" ads, ads wouldn't exist. But most people are too full of themselves to admit that they are just as open to subconscious ad manipulation as everyone else.
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IV. What's your solution?
Ban ads in as many places as possible. Ban billboards (worked pretty well in Sao Paulo, Brazil), restrict or ban TV advertising, strongly fight against product placement etc.
But what if that results in many "awesome, free" services dying out? Well, the thing is this: people ALREADY PAY FOR THESE SERVICES indirectly. So why not force companies to make it more transparent? If a TV show is awesome, I'm sure people would buy it or pay on a monthly base for it anyway. However, if it isn't good enough to warrant a DIRECT payment, then why should TV viewers have to finance it via the underhanded advertising scheme?
Good content will survive, trash that could only finance itself via ads would die out. If interest in e.g sports isn't big enough to warrant direct payment, tough luck.
And since many people will inevitably lament the "loss of free content", I'll have to repeat it once again: the content you call "free" is not free by any means. Only the method of payment is less direct, more underhanded, less transparent. In the end, the production costs of a "free" TV series are paid by the consumer in exactly the same way and to the exact same degree that a "not free" TV series is. You are NOT, I repeat, NOT getting free content NOR are you getting a better deal. It's simply an illusion, unfortunately a very powerful one that most people are not willing to let go of.
Because, after all, who'd like to admit that they are so open to manipulation and so unable to understand how indirect costs work?
EDIT: One more thing -- some might complain that this would make it hard to inform yourself about products or that new companies would have a harder time entering the scene. But the thing is, ads no longer serve to inform the consumer at all. Most ads are just entirely hot air, either made-up, unprovable comments or just trying to convey a "feeling" with a certain product (e.g. "coolness", "wealth"). There are plenty of ways to inform yourself about products aside from ads, such as the internet. Honestly, nobody who is actively looking for a particular product "informs" himself via advertisements anyway.