What if we banned all advertising? Not regulate it—abolish it. This proposal would transform manipulation machines, and maybe save democracy itself. A thought experiment worth considering.

The idea feels like sci-fi because you’re so used to it, imagining ads gone feels like asking to outlaw gravity. But humanity had been free of current forms of advertising for 99.9% of its existence. Word-of-mouth and community networks worked just fine. First-party websites and online communities would now improve on that.

The traditional argument pro-advertising—that it provides consumers with necessary information—hasn’t been valid for decades.

  • FundMECFS
    22·
    8 days ago

    Imagine how much labour and money we’d free up to do actually useful things like help homeless people and disabled people etc. If we cut all those marketing and advertising departments.

    It’s a whole massive industry that takes massive amounts of financial resources and human labour and doesn’t contribute to anyone’s wellbeing except the stockholders of the company.