Is there not always some sort "marketplace" where people see what's being offered one way or another?

I don't think we need ads for discovery, I see it more as a nefarious way to occupy space in people's conscious.

>Is there not always some sort "marketplace"

How exactly does that work for virtual products?

Catalogs - offline and on-line, commercial and government. Deprived of constant noise and overstimulation of advertising, people will actively seek such information out, whether because they have a problem to solve, or just out of curiosity. All we're talking about here is switching from current "push" model of advertising back to "pull" model.

Who here never browsed a product or company catalog they found, just because they were curious?

I can almost feel the calm just imagining the world you're describing.

Not that I ever use it but there are apparently services like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_Hunt people use to seek out new products.

But as sibling comment said, if it's really good, people will find it eventually.

Funny you mention Product Hunt because it's pay-to-play too, there was a whole controversy a decade ago exactly now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10739875

If they provide value, people will seek them out.

How? If you don't advertise, no one can see you.

Just one counter example: gh.de

Not really a counter example: gh.de is a pure advertising platform.

If I need something, I’ll find it.

How did people that had something to sell do it before advertising?

The problem again is greed. The organic way is too inefficient so advertising needs to come in and make people rich instead of letting the product do the convincing naturally, word of mouth and so on.

Advertising is as old as humanity itself. Asking what people did before advertising doesn't make sense.

Also, word-of-mouth advertising is, as the name suggests, a form of advertising.

Most of the YT ads are AI rubbish. I can't imagine those fake "realistic puppy" ads generate any sales whatsoever. Same for the monocular that can zoom into a book title from a mountain range away. And nearly all the other YT and news feed ads one typically sees.

Frankly, they should be illegal. If a physical store did that in Canada, it certainly would be. I'm surprised Canada hasn't reacted to these overabundant fake-product ads.

That’s not a problem for the customers though. Capitalism twists our incentives toward prioritizing return on investment over quality of life. Especially now with the internet, I literally never need ads. I just search for the solution to the problem I’m having. No push needed (or wanted).

> I literally never need ads. I just search for the solution to the problem I’m having. No push needed (or wanted).

I want to agree with you, but you only think you're not seeing ads. Obviously, the SEO corruption has made everything you search for distorted by irresistible economic incentives of tilting the search results and search engine in favor of promoters.

Oh I agree. I don’t want or need to see ads, I currently do though.

Yes, and if you ban ads then you can expect a lot more underhand marketing as the companies peddling their goods will try and find another way to reach you.

How do you search? Google? That's typically part of marketing spend. It may not be pure ads as in I pay google, they display my ad. But it's still a company spending money to get their result to the top so you are more likely to see it.

Ads solve the discovery problem. Without ads, people still try to solve the discovery problem and try to get your attention. Are those methods still ads?

> Without ads, people still try to solve the discovery problem and try to get your attention. Are those methods still ads?

examples?

- Paying for product placement on store shelves and movies

- SEO optimization to get to the top of the search result page

- Paying influencers to use their product

- Paying people to post on forums about the product

- Sending / sponsoring reviewers