Advertisements are a scourge upon society, the environment, and ourselves. They are among the worst capitalism has to offer. Why not get rid of them?

  • HobbitFoot
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    1 year ago

    They exist because they subsidize other activity. As much as people complain about advertising, people complain about paying for things more.

    • scmstr@lemmynsfw.com
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      1 year ago

      I’ll pay for stuff if it’s worth it. I buy hardware and utilities. Spotify was interesting at first, but when you realize how much money you’re paying for music over the years, it just doesn’t seem worth it compared to how much money we make over the years.

      So that almost makes me not care as much about advertising as I do about unfettered capitalism in general. There should be a wealth tax to discourage things costing so much to maximize profits. Investing is cool as a form of funding growth and innovation, but it squeezes returns and encourages extreme greed and profit. We should all make a little less, and things should cost a LOT less.

      When capitalism ducks up, the government is supposed to step in (to help the people). When the government ducks up, Robin Hood is supposed to step in (to help the people). When Robin Hood ducks up, the people must step in with pitchforks and the government must step aside (to help the people).

      It’s always been about the people. Government exists for the people, innovation exists for the people, business exists for the people, and even Robin Hood exists for the people. When those all fail, it’s revolution time.

      I’ll pay for stuff if I can afford it, and I don’t think most people are against basic economy stuff, either. But when it’s out of control, and people can’t afford or it’s not worth it, and then you make their experience worse and have to resort to psychological manipulation, you’ve already ducked up.

      In basically any interpersonal situation, if you have to resort to psychological manipulation, that’s a REALLY bad sign and something is super broken.