Without advertising, “content marketing”, and paid placements/reviews people would buy things when they desire or need them.
They’d ask friends, compare specs, and read/watch reviews before determining what to buy.
That is: without ads, people would gravitate towards buying what fits their needs best. They would make generally rational choices given the information available.
Advertising’s job is to subvert those rational choices and make people buy something, whether it’s the best option or not. In fact, even when they don’t actually want or need anything at all.
It causes people exposed to it to spend money unnecessarily, and on the wrong products and downright bad products. Some are more susceptible than others, but in the end it’s an illegitimate tax levied every time you buy something. Even if you didn’t respond to advertising when making a purchase, advertising is so ubiquitous and necessary in most markets that the price you paid probably contributed to the advertising the manufacturer had to deploy to keep up with the arms race.
There’s nothing ethical or necessary about any of this.
Ideally there would be legislation that would force business models to change, but while there is not, ad blocking is absolutely an imperative.
"That is: without ads, people would gravitate towards buying what fits their needs best. They would make generally rational choices given the information available."
Not to sound snarky, būt have you met humans?If sociology and economics have shown anything, itš that human do NO make rational consumption choices
Without advertising, “content marketing”, and paid placements/reviews people would buy things when they desire or need them.
They’d ask friends, compare specs, and read/watch reviews before determining what to buy.
That is: without ads, people would gravitate towards buying what fits their needs best. They would make generally rational choices given the information available.
Advertising’s job is to subvert those rational choices and make people buy something, whether it’s the best option or not. In fact, even when they don’t actually want or need anything at all.
It causes people exposed to it to spend money unnecessarily, and on the wrong products and downright bad products. Some are more susceptible than others, but in the end it’s an illegitimate tax levied every time you buy something. Even if you didn’t respond to advertising when making a purchase, advertising is so ubiquitous and necessary in most markets that the price you paid probably contributed to the advertising the manufacturer had to deploy to keep up with the arms race.
There’s nothing ethical or necessary about any of this.
Ideally there would be legislation that would force business models to change, but while there is not, ad blocking is absolutely an imperative.