From violations of privacy, to the mainpulation or even maliciousness at its core, I think marketing at it’s current state is poison to society. But I also think it might be a necessary evil. What would be a good alternative implementation of advertising look like? Or do we even need it? If the former, how would advertising look in a non-capitalist society?
Assuming innovation, it seems like there would still be a need for some way for producers to inform potential consumers. I’d love to see advertising move from “create demand” to “provide information”. Not at all sure how that might come about though.
Meanwhile, I personally get by just fine with blocking as many ads as possible, which is almost all of them, and going out and searching when I need information. But that probably doesn’t scale to busier people.
I agree, something like a verified product broadsheet that includes information about the product, but also provides information on where it is sourced and manufactured, who is doing the labor of production, where it can be serviced, how long its expected use… to provide the consumer fuller picture of utility.
This is a great question! I too have come to the realization that marketing is highly damaging to society. Commercials, ads, spam, flyers, etc. So much waste and invasion of privacy.
I’ve been trying to imagine what a world without marketing would look like for months.
In cetain areas, the consumer experience is greatly improved. No interruptions of TV or podcasts. Less bandwidth, ram, and cpu used when browsing web pages. No invasive individual tracking anywhere.
But the two major changes that require additional consideration:
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How do businesses today that rely on ad revenue (web search, podcasts, etc) continue to exist and pay salaries and other expenses? A. These would all require a move to direct payment models. Either a usage fee or a subscription fee.
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How do businesses source customers? Especially important for new businesses or new products that customers dont know about.
A. I dont have a clear solution here. But I would like to see two possible ways that are not mutually exclusive:
a. The Phone Book. It basically went extinct when the internet and web search became ubiquitous. But I’d like to see it return.
b. Service Brokers. Similar to above but businesses or humans in the loop to assist with supporting mapping of request to service provider.
With a., its pretty easy to make this physical, standardized and regulated to be fair/utilitarian
With b., it will require conscious effort to regulate and ensure consumers arent tracked and no business is given and unfair advantage.
How do businesses source customers? Especially important for new businesses or new products that customers dont know about.
Given the shift towards online shopping, the businesses can easily provide the necessary information along with the product they are selling. In that case, only those customer who are looking for a specific type of product get to see the information. Retains the necessary elements of advertising & marketing without the unnecessary element of consumerism.
- How do businesses today that rely on ad revenue (web search, podcasts, etc) continue to exist and pay salaries and other expenses? A. These would all require a move to direct payment models. Either a usage fee or a subscription fee.
On their own it would probably not work for everyone, but groups of paid services might work. Although I’m not sure how I would feel if everything started having a paywall…
Also I like both ideas. Would likely make consuming stuff more informative than persuasive.
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Hi @bear_delune, we’d like to avoid these kinds of low-effort comments in !politics when possible. Please make an effort to contribute to the discussion more when commenting in the future.
James Tiptree Jr. wrote a short story once called “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” set in a world where advertising was outlawed. The companies uses influencers to use their products in public, but they keep complete control of these influencers in the dark cyberpunk dystopian way.
I think our surroundings would be much cleaner. We’d have less flyers, billboards, tarps, etc. We would live in a quieter world filled with less distraction.
As much as I hate it however, I agree that it’s a necessary evil, but maybe it could be executed more responsibly. I personally prefer “buy it for life” discussions, or product reviews by experts, or those gradings according to sustainability. So maybe in a non-capitalist society, adverts would be more informative than just, “look at this shiny thing, don’t you want it?”
