Can't...stop...buying...

December 5, 2007 5:19 AM

What would happen if we banned all advertising?

Seems to me advertising does a lot of harm, making people buy stuff they don't need, want stuff they can't afford, and reinforcing ridiculous notions of what life should be like. So why don't we just ban it?
Has this ever been seriously considered or even attempted? What would the consequences be? Would there be a recession as demand fell through the floor? Many businesses (especially TV/Radio) would have to find new business models, but with the rise of new media these obstacles don't seem insurmountable. There's been a lot of talk about banning kids advertising/tobacco advertising, why don't we just go all the way?

posted by greytape to law & government (54 comments total)

The did it in Sau Paulo, but yeah, Chatfilter.
posted by ReiToei at 5:26 AM on December 5, 2007

The question does have answers, though.

1) We don't ban it because the corporations that spend money on advertising also spend a lot of money influencing the political process, and they don't want it banned.

2) Even if it were somehow magically banned, you wouldn't see that much of a change in anything. People are conditioned to buy buy buy by more than just advertising—advertising helps individual brands more than it helps the system as a whole.

2a) I suspect you'd see a lot more creative advertising, anyway, for a long time after the initial ban, as companies found loopholes to try and game the system and retain their brand advantage: buying up buildings and roads, "viral" YouTube ads, product placement in culture, etc.

3) To ban advertising in any effective, tangible sense you'd have to ban the concept of the brand itself, which is too ingrained in late capitalism to go anywhere unless the whole system is banned. Which for good or for evil isn't really on the table. Which returns us to ND¢ and his notion of chatfilter and the BBQ.
posted by gerryblog at 5:32 AM on December 5, 2007

Huh, didn't think this would be seen as chatfilter, I'm looking for answers to the questions:

"has this ever been seriously considered or even attempted? What would the consequences be?"

But please remove it if it is.
posted by greytape at 5:35 AM on December 5, 2007

It would be similar to campaign finance reform. Lots of money would be dedicated to finding loopholes. It's not like "advertising" is easy to define, and it's a great slippery slope.

For instance:
Can you put your company name on a product?
Can you put your company logo on a product?
Can you make your logo really large?
Can you give this large logo-centric product away for a pittance?
At which point in those steps did it become advertising?
posted by smackfu at 5:42 AM on December 5, 2007

You can go to Havana in Cuba and see it in action for yourself. The only billboards I recall seeing there are political propaganda adverts.

(Okay, so if you're a US citizen you have to take a trip via Nassau, Canada or Mexico and tear the Cuban visa out of your passport, but you get what I mean.)

I disagree with Gerryblog that you need to ban the brand to ban advertising. In the UK, tobacco advertising and sponsorship has been banned on TV and it looks like fast food and alcohol advertising are on their way out, too. This doesn't stop the tobacco brands from existing or indeed from succeeding.

Similarly Cuba still has its cigar brands - Montecristo, Cohiba etc - even though it may be that they are state-run and manufactured at the same factories. You don't walk around Havana seeing huge billboards for these products, but they still exist and they still sell.

The other interesting side-effect is that while there is a US trade embargo, there is still a demand for US products - regardless of the lack of advertising - so you can buy cans of Coca-Cola - it's just that they have been imported from somewhere odd such as Germany or Mexico.

A city without advertising is far more serene and its own unique cultural identity is revealed. However, it is an odd experience walking around a city with no advertising, and to some a city with no billboards might be perceived as lacking the life or energy of a city which is plastered with posters and buzzing with neon.

I think banning advertising would have many positive effects, especially when it comes to products and services relating to credit, fast food, alcohol, drugs, tobacco, cars and so on. But banning advertising would be seen as a fundamentally un-American and un-capitalist thing to do. It won't everhappen in the UK or US as far as I can see.
posted by skylar at 5:43 AM on December 5, 2007

I don't think this is chatfilter; I think this is a question that most governments grapple with on a regular basis, as evidenced by the the restrictions that are in place in various countries, and the changes and additions to those restrictions.

I wonder what countries have contemplated the possibility of outlawing all advertising, and then given up the idea as untenable for economic reasons - or even social reasons, and what those reasons were/are. (I can think of a few)

I do think that this is a question that can be answered, as far as it's surely an idea that has been studied and modeled, and some of those results could be revealed here by people who know what they are.
posted by taz at 5:44 AM on December 5, 2007

you don't need to ban it, just need to regulate it. I find the amount of money spent by pharmaceutical companies on tv to be obscene.

The great myth that the robber barons of a society spend every free penny trying to brainwash the rabble is that the free market is the best state for capitalism - it's not. True free market capitalism would be the most dangerous ideology ever to exist. Capitalism with regulation and a hint of socialism to make sure the sick, poor, lazy, dumb and old don't go without is the best system man can live under and we were close to achieving it before the Grover Norquist's of the world started tearing down the fabric.
posted by any major dude at 6:00 AM on December 5, 2007

The world managed perfectly well without advertising until a few short centuries ago, so I don't see a problem - adjusting to such a situation again would not be easy, especially for countries that focus as much on "consume!" as the US and Western Europe, but I'm pretty sure it can be done.

The biggest problem is mindset, as can be seen in the discussions about using Adblock in FireFox - immediately there will be people who almost claim it's "stealing" and "websites will disappear".

Yes, yes they will, unless they find a different business model. The same goes for most of broadcast TV, marketing executives, and the lot, when advertising stops being viable for them. So what? But as long as people think Adblock makes me a thief, advertising is not likely to disappear.

Somehow these people want to make me, as an Adblock user with a switched-off TV, responsible for coming up with a new business model.

Pff.
posted by DreamerFi at 6:01 AM on December 5, 2007 [3 favorites has favorites]

First amendment questions aside, the first thing that would disappear is free or under-priced media. How much are you — or really, anybody else — really willing to pay for television and newspapers? Intarwubs?

Salon.com had a model (probably still do) where you could either pay for the content or watch an ad. I have no numbers, but I imagine most people just watched the ad.

In terms of billboards and other ubiquitous advertising, San Paulo in Brazil banned outdoor advertising, and Vermont actually has a billboard ban and stringent signing regulations. Those might be the best place to start if you really want to study what happens.
posted by General Malaise at 6:08 AM on December 5, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

I can tell you from first hand experiences traveling between Damascus and Beirut of the stark contrast of a world with mega-corporate advertising (excluding the Assad regime) and one in which every available surface is covered in advertising.

It wasn't that advertising was actually banned by the Syrian regime, rather Western sanctions tend to remove from the market the most eggregious offenders, no Coca Cola, no McDonalds, etc. What you did find in Syria was the use of hand painted signs and smaller plackards for the more local brands. Where there were imported goods, they tended to be from countries where the language was different that those that locals spoke, for example a Chinese cola brand, Mandarin, had filled the Coke niche, but big adverts by Mandarin would have been in, well, Mandarin and would have reached very few Syrians, so vendors made hand-painted signs for Mandarin in Arabic, French and English, the most widely read languages (note: read, not spoken). Since these signs tended towards the hand-made and were limited to advertising the vendor's stands themselves rather than a brand, they did not get out of hand. Mandarin did not have a brand conciousness campaign, rather Abdul the merchant just wanted folks to know that he had a few colas in the "cooler" in the back.

In contrast, the first thing you see in the DMZ- no man's land between Syria and Lebanon is a Dunkin Donuts like an oasis in the desert. From there on across the Bekka the advertising becomes more and more pervasive. Cars magically cease to be '53 Scodas and become brand new BMW's. Mandarin gives way to Coke and Pepsi and a brand war scars the terrain with billboards and neon. Minute by minute the assault on the senses grows as you reach the glittering palace of Western Capitalism, the Paris of the East, Beirut. Everywhere you are innundated by a stream of advertising. Here a KFC billboard shills 1500 lira chicken fingers from the side of a RPG-pocked former luxury hotel, there a beautiful, 40-foot tall woman shamlessly exposes her hair and midriff to tell you how you too can have skin like her if you only use her all-natural product. Here, Ronald McDonald sits in fiberglass effigy on a bench beside two very real Lebanese Security Forces soldiers in full body armor, there, a Benni-hanna chef becons you to watch him sportingly cook-up some mediocre, over-priced stir-fry on a cook top that someone has stenciled in a pro-Hezbullah symbol.
posted by Pollomacho at 6:09 AM on December 5, 2007 [9 favorites has favorites]

Other industries would be affected too. Matt wouldn't be able to make any money from selling ad space on this site. News sites and print newspapers would lose their main source of income. Advertising money supports many sources of important information, and we would need to negotiate new ways to keep those sources functioning.
posted by bassjump at 6:25 AM on December 5, 2007

IANAEconomist, but from what I remember about economic theory, markets function best (most "efficiently") if all buyers have "perfect knowledge" or as close as you can get to that, of all products. This way, nobody gets overcharged, etc. The role of advertising in the market it is to provide knowledge to consumers. It doesn't do this "perfectly", therefore we will always have "imperfect" markets, but without any advertising, the consumer loses. Cuba is a good example, cited above.
posted by beagle at 6:27 AM on December 5, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

Let's think about this for a second. What even does it mean to ban advertising? Sure, it sounds all nice and warm and fuzzy. Don't let giant corporations brainwash us with their products, and all that. But there's good advertising, too. Say I have a great new idea for something that you legitimately would want. Are you telling me that I wouldn't be allowed to tell people about my idea? Or would I only be allowed to tell people one-by-one? Or would I only be allowed to tell people until I became a "giant corporation" (i.e. until it became popular)?

And that's not even to mention the Internet. Banning advertising wouldn't hurt big internet retailers so much--you already know about them. But the smaller ones, unlike bricks-and-mortar stores, don't have a storefront you can walk past, even. There is pretty much no way you can find out about them except by them announcing their existence to the world through advertising. And what counts as advertising on the Internet? Buying an ad on Google clearly does---but what about blogs doing link exchanges? Just because the payment is in kind doesn't make it any different.

Sure, advertising is often intrusive and sleazy. And the most visible kinds often seem very easy to live without. But the fact that people actually do buy things they've seen advertised shows that advertising does bring value to the consumer. So regulate it, sure. God knows that nobody needs billboards covering every available space. But I don't think "banning all advertising" makes much sense.
posted by goingonit at 6:30 AM on December 5, 2007 [3 favorites has favorites]

As most thing in life, advertising is not bad as such.
Only abuse of advertising can be bad in some ways and/or in some contexts, and that can be controlled.

Advertising is nothing more that commerce, nothing more than the lettering on the window of a shop. First it's made so you can see it when passing by on the street. Then it's on posters that will "inform" you a little farther. Then it's piggybacking onto mass media that reach you at home, or at work, or in your car.

To some degree, advertising is controlled almost everywhere. There are some neighborhoods or areas where you can't post giant posters or neon signs. There are countries where you can't advertise to kids under a certain age. There are products that you can't advertise in some places or in some mass media.

We tend to forgot that advertising is an intricate part of our life because our life depends on finding products that we need and that we want, so it depends on information about these products. Banning advertising because it's sometimes too loud is akin to banning trucks because they are sometimes dangerous for pedestrians.

Contrary to popular belief, advertising is controlled everywhere and can be controlled anywhere. If you don't want to see ads in some places, it's like everything else: tell it to the owner of the place, or start a movement to influence your government representative. It can be done. In fact it is done everywhere, all the time, including here: as a signed-on member of MetaFilter, you see barely any ad because Matt has decided so. And even if you are not a member, you see only as much ads as Matt has also decided: he could do the same as other sites and let advertising occupy 3/4th of your screen or more.

Advertising is not a poison anymore than a bird's song or a pheasant's feathers are poisons. It's just part of life. You feel that you hear too much birds and see too many colored feathers around you? Take control of your environment. You are not lost, you are not defenseless, you are not alone. Do something. One backyard at a time, one street block after another.

Because if you outlaw birds, you outlaw life. And then, you are really in trouble.

And yes, IANAD, but I have covered advertising and marketing for 20 years and I have dissected them to the bones. The bones are ours.
posted by bru at 6:34 AM on December 5, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

In the UK, tobacco advertising and sponsorship has been banned on TV and it looks like fast food and alcohol advertising are on their way out, too. This doesn't stop the tobacco brands from existing or indeed from succeeding.

This gets to the heart of the conceptual problem here. Cigarette brands in the UK continue to advertise themselves on their packs; people smoking in the street are an advertisement for the industry in general. There is no clear separation between a product and an advertisement for that product, and the boundary is getting more and more blurred.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 6:35 AM on December 5, 2007

"The world managed perfectly well without advertising until a few short centuries ago, so I don't see a problem..."

Why do you think advertising is a new thing? This seems kind of naive to me. Certainly, modern forms of advertising like TV commercials didn't exist until relatively recently, but older forms such as street criers, and even graffiti go back a long, long way.

I just now stumbled on this old book in Google books which might be of interest, though I haven't read it yet.

"A city without advertising is far more serene and its own unique cultural identity is revealed. However, it is an odd experience walking around a city with no advertising...

I dare say it's not possible for such a city to exist -- not without unreasonably extreme limitations on speech. Advertising isn't just billboards and radio commercials.
posted by litlnemo at 6:50 AM on December 5, 2007

Seems to me advertising does a lot of harm, making people buy stuff they don't need, want stuff they can't afford, and reinforcing ridiculous notions of what life should be like. So why don't we just ban it?

Because advertising doesn't do harm to people, people lacking in judgment and self-control do harm to themselves. You shouldn't punish people who want to know about the existence of new products.
posted by 23skidoo at 6:54 AM on December 5, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

My answer to your questions: It is not possible to ban advertising.

And this is why: Basically, advertising is everywhere and in everything we do; I want you to wear a colorful shirt so I wear a colorful shirt, you see me wearing this colorful shirt and then you want this shirt. I have just successfully advertised it- no billboard, no TV commercial, no newspaper. Just by wearing the colorful shirt, and putting it out there for all to see, the act of advertising has occurred.

Lets get even more basic... I want you to dance. I do a dance around the fire in front of you. You see this dance and mimic my dance- advertising has just occurred. I have influenced you to do some action. This is the basic principle behind all advertising. The act of advertising is scalable, you can throttle back or throttle forward but you can not stop it or make it disappear.
posted by bkeene12 at 7:07 AM on December 5, 2007

I Am Not An Economist, but from what I recall about economic theory, in order for markets to work best ("most efficiently"), consumers need "perfect" information about products and prices. This saves them from paying unnecessary premiums for any product and therefore gives them the most bang for their bucks. At the same time sellers with the best products maximize sales and profits. It doesn't work this way in the real world because consumers will always have "imperfect" information, but advertising serves an important role by providing information, imperfect as it may be, about products and prices. Without any advertising, the consumer is most easily duped; the consumer overspends; and good products do not survive in the market.
posted by beagle at 7:08 AM on December 5, 2007

Markets would become less efficient and it would be harder to find good things. You'd wind up with inferior crap in some cases and wind up with the best crap in other cases, but you'd have very little control over it. Actually, the truth is advertising would just move. Billboards are just a variation on word-of-mouth, so things would just have to come directly from mouths.
posted by yerfatma at 7:09 AM on December 5, 2007

Sorry to repeat myself, I thought my previous version of that answer didn't make it to the thread somehow.
posted by beagle at 7:09 AM on December 5, 2007

You'd end up with higher prices and less selection. Since you'd be relying on in-store frontage to stimulate demand, you'd be putting the retailer in a very powerful position with regard to manufacturers. Every retailer would become a strangling WalMart. Ick.
posted by DarlingBri at 7:34 AM on December 5, 2007

The world managed perfectly well without advertising until a few short centuries ago

Neither did (a) free markets nor (b) the means of production to produce the volume of advertising you see today. That's a bit of a straw man.

From the OP: Seems to me advertising does a lot of harm, making people buy stuff they don't need, want stuff they can't afford, and reinforcing ridiculous notions of what life should be like. So why don't we just ban it?

Cars crash and kill their drivers, passengers, and innocent bystanders. Why not ban them? You can find the broad negative in pretty much anything.
posted by mkultra at 7:35 AM on December 5, 2007

A couple points:

You said, "making people buy stuff they don't need." Err, who exactly are you to tell me what I don't need or what I should spend my money on? If I want to buy a diamond necklace for my pug, then more power to me. I think the idea that people function on a need only basis and the assumptions of the common man are always correct are woefully wrong. (see communism 20th century)

Advertising may convince someone they need an HD TV. They may love that HD TV. In a capitalist society banning advertising is like telling companies they cant speak anymore.

Not to mention companies that are brand powerful but product weak (gucci bag) are going to be out of business and now youve got 100 people without jobs. Everything subsidizing by advertising will go broke too. Even Mefi.

Now, in a socialist society where an elite controls distribution, production, and dictates your means of living, yes, it makes perfect sense to ban advertising. Mainly because it would be wasteful and stupid. You buy what they tell and how much. Why convince people of anything. There's no competition. End of story. Don't like it? Too bad.

In the west it was decided that controlling markets and controlling people is actually highly counter-productive. It turns out that a small elite doesnt have the mindshare to figure everything out. It turns out people like their basic economic freedoms. It turns out that people tolerate work better when they know they have a little extra cash in pocket for what you call "useless" things like useless art or useless nicer couches or useless hd tvs or useless toys for kids.

So its really impossible to address this question without talking about how capitalism works, how people operate, and how elitists who think they know whats good for you are usually wrong.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:49 AM on December 5, 2007

What would the consequences be?

Successfully banning advertising would only be possible in the most grinding totalitarianism imaginable, so that would be the primary effect.

If you wanted to actually ban advertising, you'd need to have the Ad Police investigate anyone who made a positive statement about any good or service to test whether their statement constituted an advertisement. Likewise, anyone using a product whose brand name was visible. And anyone using a product that was an identifiable brand at all.

If you don't these horrible, despotic things, advertisers will simply turn to them, or to other forms of product placement, or to whatever you haven't banned. Viz, ads in MMO games that forbid ads structured from object placement, etc.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:50 AM on December 5, 2007

Marketing would blossom.*

*not necessarily a good thing.
posted by drezdn at 7:52 AM on December 5, 2007

As someone mentioned upthread, there's a fuzzy line between product packaging and advertising. Here's an anecdote (possibly apocryphal) about that.

Back in the day, the ruling body for bicycle racing in the UK banned any kind of logo or brand name from bikes ridden in competition. Obviously bike makers wanted enthusiasts to know when races were won on their bikes, and so they started using "gingerbread" lugwork and even fanciful frame designs (if you've ever seen a curly-stay Hetchins, you know what I'm talking about) as ways to brand their bikes.

People can be clever, especially when money is involved. When you give them a constraint like this, they find ways around it. If you ban advertising, you'll find lots of "sponsorship" arrangements (just as cigarette companies, who are banned from some media, will sponsor music festivals and the like). If you ban sponsorships, they'll figure something else out. A good place to look for this kind of ingenuity in action is politics. Bribery is illegal, but lobbying is not. And when the McCain-Feingold act placed limits on campaign contributions, a hundred 527 organizations bloomed.
posted by adamrice at 8:16 AM on December 5, 2007

The biggest problem is mindset, as can be seen in the discussions about using Adblock in FireFox - immediately there will be people who almost claim it's "stealing" and "websites will disappear".

Disappearing websites aside, why do you think it's not stealing? Personally, I use adblocking because it speeds up load times and it gets rid of the most obnoxious, distracting ads, but I am conflicted about it.

Most websites derive their income (and viability) from advertising. If I take the approach that I'm entitled to your content/services for free and block out your revenue stream, how is that not de facto theft? The content provider is paying to produce and deliver, and you're refusing to balance out the equation- if you really have a philosophical problem with ads on websites, perhaps the answer is not to visit them. Micropayments are clearly one alternative, but the market hasn't accepted them.
posted by mkultra at 8:18 AM on December 5, 2007

There's that pesky US Constitution to worry about...
posted by JimN2TAW at 8:24 AM on December 5, 2007

To attempt an answer to your original question "What would happen if we banned all advertising?":

1. You are probably correct that people would buy fewer things they don't need, but the things they do need would get much more expensive. Advertising informs people of alternatives and so drives competition which lowers prices.
2. Any information or entertainment you get from television, radio, newspaper, magazine, or internet would cease to be free or cheap. You would pay cash for every article you read on the web. This would result in you being less informed and the poor being totally uninformed. Information would only get to those who could afford to pay for it.
3. It would be much more difficult to find a place to live or work because rental/real estate listings and job postings are advertising, and would be banned.
posted by rocket88 at 8:28 AM on December 5, 2007

I'm with the "they'll find a way around it" voices above. As just one additional example, since cigarette advertising is banned on television in the US, tobacco companies instead air public service announcements saying "don't SMOKE."
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:01 AM on December 5, 2007

It's not so much theft to block advertising, but against the implicit contract between content providers and their audience. It's like if you attend a church that expects you to donate something every now and then to maintain their property. You don't have to contribute EVERY time you go to church, but if you don't put $20 in the tray every now and then you're going against the "social contract" that's in place.

Censoring advertising is much the same. There is no expectation for you to respond to it or use it constantly, but signing out of it while still taking the bounties over the long term will mean the content providers come up with NASTIER ways to advertise to you that cannot be blocked (commercial spots in the middle of news items, time shifted programming, major product placement in shows, etc).

So, it's not stealing, but thank you to all of you who block advertising for, potentially, making our media landscape an even spammier place in the future.
posted by wackybrit at 9:02 AM on December 5, 2007

And let's not forget that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people would be unemployed, more or less overnight. That doesn't sound very desirable from an economic viewpoint. :)
posted by fusinski at 9:39 AM on December 5, 2007

So why don't we just ban it?

Because "I have something to sell" is free speech.

Would there be a recession as demand fell through the floor?

A ban on advertising does not mean we cancel Christmas, and neither does advertising create Christmas, per se. People still want things, regardless of advertising.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:41 AM on December 5, 2007

I'm with the "they'll find a way around it" voices above. As just one additional example, since cigarette advertising is banned on television in the US, tobacco companies instead air public service announcements saying "don't SMOKE."

Exactly. In Poland a few years back they instituted a ban on alcohol advertising. Suddenly every brand of beer had a non-alcoholic version. Of course nobody actually bought this product. But there was one beer maker (was it Okocim?) that ran an incredibly cheeky TV ad campaign for it's new non-alcoholic beer. Typical beer ad, and at the end the sexy woman looked at the camera and said "OKOCIM BEER! Non-alcoholic, of course," and then winked.
posted by Meatbomb at 10:45 AM on December 5, 2007

and neither does advertising create Christmas, per se

Au contraire!
posted by mkultra at 10:50 AM on December 5, 2007

What would happen? In the US, our right to free speech would be violated, for one thing.

Why don't we do it anyway? Because most people (including the lawmakers who would be the ones to do it) don't want government spending our tax dollars on enacting and enforcing laws restricting *advertising*, for gosh sakes (not to mention free speech). And most people want the freedom to be able to control their own actions, desires and spending, and like to think that other human beings, the most intelligent species on the planet, are also capable of controlling their own actions, desires and spending.
posted by iguanapolitico at 11:58 AM on December 5, 2007

In Poland a few years back they instituted a ban on alcohol advertising. Suddenly every brand of beer had a non-alcoholic version.

I don't disagree marketers would find away around things, but the example above (as smart as it is) where you advertise a similar but exempt product is removed enough from the idea of a ban on all advertising as to be almost irrelevant. Rehashing some of what appeared above, I think there's four main points to make:

1. Enforcing a total ban raises some disturbing issues on freedom of speech and democratic ideals. Regulation is good, we should do our best to keep cigarettes from targeting kids, or deciding an area is scenic enough that we keep billboards out, but a total ban goes way, way beyond those concepts.

2. There is certainly loud and obnoxious advertising that simply tries really hard to sell you stuff you probably really don't need, but there's an awful lot of advertising that subsidizes products (whether media or physical products) whose abscence would make it very hard for lots of people to create and market their wares, even the "good" stuff.

3. While it certainly isn't always the case, advertising can be very creative, funny, thought-provoking, and / or aesthetically pleasing, and I think on net the world would be a worse place without ANY of it.

4. As jalexei is in advertising, you'd all be very, very sad when he lost his job. (I always chuckle at the Bill Hicks bit on ad people, but honestly, did he ever wonder how many people would even know who he was without advertising? Did he object to the venue he was performing in advertising his appearance? Or his label plugging his albums? I'm betting he didn't)
posted by jalexei at 12:08 PM on December 5, 2007

Disappearing websites aside, why do you think it's not stealing? ... If I take the approach that I'm entitled to your content/services for free and block out your revenue stream, how is that not de facto theft? The content provider is paying to produce and deliver, and you're refusing to balance out the equation...

I have a real fundamental problem with this attitude, because it ignores a couple of important points.

Firstly, a website doesn't exist because I want to see something; a website exists because the provider desires to provide it. Whether it be somewhere like MeFi (where I'd like to believe that Matt continues to provide it through a combined sense of philanthropy and achievement at seeing his 'baby' thrive and be enjoyed), or CNN (where the purpose itself is advertising, in the "look at me, I'm over here, with all your information/education/amusement needs, don't look over there at news.com.com!" sense), they don't exist because someone wants to see them - they exist because someone/something wants to provide them. Largely, the reason why is immaterial to the end-user.

Secondly ... what's this "equation" that always gets dragged out as justification in these discussions, apart from something childishly dreamt up to justify the position of advertising? "I provide this; you owe me, man!".

Ummm... no, I don't.

It's an argument designed to parasitise the innate good nature of people; it feeds on the human desire to do the right thing by other people. Which I'm all for, in interpersonal relationships - but we're not talking about interpersonal relationships, we're talking business transactions - a difference in power balance, responsibility, and law which every business, from the one-man-band on ebay right up to the Microsofts and IBMs of this world is keen to point out when it's to their advantage.

Blocking ads is not theft. You're throwing something I don't want at me, and I'm choosing to ignore it.

In short: don't want people to block your ads? Then you've got 3 choices - provide your content anyway, and accept that you likely won't make money off it directly; block visitors that block ads, and accept that you're restricting your market; or charge people to visit, and accept that you're severely restricting your market. As a person, viewer, or customer, it's not my job to endure whatever you dream up just so you can make money - no matter how you 'justify' it.

(The question's not chatfilter, though this answer might be...)
posted by Pinback at 2:15 PM on December 5, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

"I provide this; you owe me, man!".

Ummm... no, I don't.

Yeah, you do.

Pinback, your ideas are noble but don't mesh with how the internet works. Bandwidth doesn't pay for itself. As content becomes more and more popular, the cost of delivery goes up and up; suddenly, it's not so viable to keep publishing to Your Amazing Blog, because your hosting provider doesn't accept payment in hugs.

When you accept something offered by someone, "the human desire to do the right thing by other people" you reference says that you accept it on their terms, not yours.
posted by mkultra at 4:11 PM on December 5, 2007

"When you accept something offered by someone (...) you accept it on their terms, not yours."

Sorry, but no: what is on the open Web is not "offered to me". It's thrown in the wind and I just happen to catch it. I owe nothing to the publisher that gives away free daily newspapers. I can just pick one, read a title or two and discard it. There is no contract between the publisher and me, not even a moral or symbolic one. I can surmise that the publisher knows what he is doing, but it is not my concern.

Pinback is right: when it comes to freely available content, the business model, whatever it might be, is the problem of the publisher, not of the reader.
posted by bru at 7:21 PM on December 5, 2007

I owe nothing to the publisher that gives away free daily newspapers

... whose newspapers are free because they have ads.
posted by mkultra at 8:00 PM on December 5, 2007

Oh, and what?

It's thrown in the wind and I just happen to catch it.

No, unless you browse via random URLs. Viewing a web page is a deliberate choice on your part.
posted by mkultra at 8:04 PM on December 5, 2007

As a person, viewer, or customer, it's not my job to endure whatever you dream up just so you can make money - no matter how you 'justify' it.

Of course it isn't. If you choose not to embrace that job, you do so by not viewing the content (or not purchasing the product, etc). If you embrace your right to view it while blocking ads, knock yourself out, but don't pretend you're "doing right" by anyone. I'd say you're the one contorting logic to "justify" something.
posted by jalexei at 8:34 PM on December 5, 2007

If I take the approach that I'm entitled to your content/services for free and block out your revenue stream, how is that not de facto theft?

I assume you only go to the bathroom during the TV show itself and not during the advertising break? Because, you know, ignoring that advertising by leaving the room is no different than what AdBlock is doing.

Taking a leak during an ad is stealing! Chain yourself to the couch!
posted by DreamerFi at 2:47 AM on December 6, 2007

Bad analogy. The ads still come through- they're not blocked. I can choose to ignore them, like on a web page. I can't elect to not receive the ads.
posted by mkultra at 6:21 AM on December 6, 2007

Skipping TV ads is stealing. Some allowance may be made for bathroom breaks.
posted by adamrice at 7:36 AM on December 6, 2007

The ads still come through- they're not blocked.

So if I waste my bandwidth but don't display the ads, you're fine with me blocking ads?
posted by DreamerFi at 8:32 AM on December 6, 2007

I'm not telling you what you should or shouldn't do, I'm simply pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Personally, I use a css-based blocker. I'm aware of the bad (less revenue for providers) and good (obnoxious, code-breaking ads mucking up the screen) ramifications. If someone could come up with some kind of certifiable "ethical adblock" that let through stuff like script-free, non-animated or text-only ads, I'd be all over it.

BTW- AdBlock on FireFox (I believe) prevents the request for the ad from being made, so no bandwidth is used. I'm not sure about the interaction of css-based blockers that use "display:none", but I suspect it's actually fetching the ad.
posted by mkultra at 9:26 AM on December 6, 2007

I assume you only go to the bathroom during the TV show itself and not during the advertising break? Because, you know, ignoring that advertising by leaving the room is no different than what AdBlock is doing.

That's a fallacious argument. The economics behind advertising are not based on 100% exposure with 100% effectiveness. If you merely see the occasional commercial, it's still a reasonable deal for the advertiser. Ad blocking is the equivalent of not having ANY exposures, whereas merely taking a wizz during commercials still means you are likely to have some sort of exposure, making it a viable deal.
posted by wackybrit at 8:35 PM on December 6, 2007

"ethical adblock"????

There are certain things I refuse to do if I can possibly avoid it. I don't kill animals, I don't shoot guns, I don't watch advertising. As a result, some business models may fail. The gun factory, the slaughterhouse, the advertising executive may all be out of a job because of my refusal. So may secondary business models: butchers, gun ranges, TV-shows and websites that depend on advertising.

It is not my duty to make those business models succeed, and if those companies disappear because they fail to make money, that is not my problem, and the concept that there must be an "ethical" way for me to continue not doing the things I don't want to do yet make those companies successful is, well, weird.
posted by DreamerFi at 11:05 PM on December 6, 2007

It is not my duty to make those business models succeed, and if those companies disappear because they fail to make money, that is not my problem, and the concept that there must be an "ethical" way for me to continue not doing the things I don't want to do yet make those companies successful is, well, weird.

You're conveniently leaving out the part of the equation that says that content providers rely on your viewing ads to derive income. It's all well and good to not support advertising, but if you're going to take that principled stand, then don't partake of the content that relies on it.

If you're going to obstinately refuse to accept that most basic of realities, then there's no point in continuing this conversation.
posted by mkultra at 5:38 AM on December 7, 2007

If you're going to obstinately refuse to accept that most basic of realities, then there's no point in continuing this conversation.

I'm not refusing to accept it - on the contrary. You're describing their business model, and that's fine. All I said it is not my duty to make it succeed. I'm also fine with content providers no longer providing their content if the business model fails, which is indeed the ultimate consequence of my not looking at their advertising.
posted by DreamerFi at 3:01 AM on December 8, 2007

Back late to this, and DreamerFi has covered a lot of what I would have said, but I'll note one interesting point: the people defending advertising here are still making use of a mythical emotive & ethical "equation" to justify their position.

mkultra, to their credit, does address this (before going on to later use it again anyway...) by pointing out

"When you accept something offered by someone, 'the human desire to do the right thing by other people' you reference says that you accept it on their terms, not yours."

Somehow I think we're standing side-by-side, looking at the same scene, but developing 2 different interpretations of it.

My 'reference', as it were (and it definitely ain't biblical, I'll tell you that...), does say that I accept it on their terms. Equally, it tells me that when I offer something, I [should] do so without expectation of recompense from the receiver.

The reference that the commercial / advertising world seems to live by is heavy on the first part, but strangely silent on the second...

(Trollish aside: I believe Americans refer to this sort of thing as "Indian-giving"...)

That's the fundamental difference between our points of view. And, I'll admit, I'm not so noble that I won't take advantage of any practical inconsistencies between them when it benefits me - just as the opposing team isn't.
posted by Pinback at 9:07 PM on December 10, 2007