This really cuts to the core of the issue. Consumers will naturally seek out the things they wish to buy. Nobody needs to be distracted from their activities to be told what to buy.

All advertising should be strictly confined to designated areas specifically intended for consumer searching.

There are a lot of movies I went to after I saw an ad for it which I never would have searched for on my own (and I can say the same about restaurants and a couple other peoducts). Consumers aren't going to search for something they don't know exists in the first place

For ages there used to be dedicated publications for ads -- why is it not possible to push all ads to only be displayed at a dedicated website, journal, newspaper, etc. where the customer(!) (not consumer) can choose to visit if he/she wants to discover something.

All we need is a push towards criminalization of ads in public spaces where they are forced on people not based on their need, but based on their ability to be manipulated into buying shit they don't need.

Yeah, because screw all these free services people can access that are paid for by ad revenue. The usual counter to this is "but I would gladly pay!" The problem isn't you, the problem is with people who can't afford to pay or aren't able to due to other means. You wouldn't have to pay for services such as Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, reddit, hackernews etc just for yourself. Your grandma, your spouse, your kids etc have to all pay for it too.

And suppose that happens. Do you know what the system ends up as? Cable TV. Congratulations, net neutrality was unnecessary after all.

Yeah, but if you hadn't seen those ads, and not watched those movies, would your life really be worse than it is now?

> Consumers aren't going to search for something they don't know exists in the first place

If a consumer doesn't buy something they don't know exists, does it really matter?

Life, at least for me and the people I know, doesn't revolve around finding things to spend money on.

I actually removed my ad blocker recently because I realized most sites I go to either don't have ads or they don't really bother me (hackernews, reddit, facebook, netflix, gmail, stackoverflow, various webcomics, etc...) and they pay for all that free content I consume. My life generally isn't better for the ads themselves but I think it is better for the services that these ad supported sites provide.

I've found many useful products that I enjoy using, such as my ReMarkable tablet, through targeted ads. I'd have never known it existed despite looking/waiting for exactly this type of product for years.

Personally I've bought a total of 0 products from adverts ever (pretty much since ~1999).

Adding an ad blocker a few years ago this trend is likely to continue, though now my web pages work better and my privacy is enhanced :)

The economy does.

Perhaps this is because I'm not an American, but my life doesn't revolve around "supporting the economy". The economy is supported when I go round living my life, not the other way round.

Exactly. Also: free market works well when the aggregated signals from customers are honest. Then it allocates resources efficiently. Advertising is all about disrupting this mechanism, injecting and generating fake signals that skew the market.

For now.

Nobody is saying that opting-in to ads should become impossible.

What if you've never heard of a quadcopter and neither have your friends, but there's a high likelihood you'd be into it since you like variable x?

Here's a plot that shows marketing channel fit by product type: http://www.kevinlordbarry.com/uploads/3/6/5/4/3654649/edited...

Ads are unsolicited untrusted information.

Though sometimes you want to get the word out about a specific thing. But this is where getting people's social circles hearing about something and trying it is important.

I definitely see a few needs for advertisement. But mostly down sides IMO.

I agree! A lot of what's going on with data is the low-cost ease of intimate access to targeted people. Thus, we get constantly pestered and then it's our job to figure out how to get peace from stuff that we didn't ask for.

I've had to turn off alerts and miss notifications from friends because marketers have run amok. And we go back to the cost: it's been so doggone cheap that so many marketers have gotten to where they just don't care about being annoying.

There should be a higher cost to access me when I'm sitting in my barber's chair. Actually, DON'T contact me when I'm in my barber's chair. Go back to tv commercials, billboards, and snail mail. Put in some effort.