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.
Advertisements are detrimental to mental health. There should be studies to measure the amount of advertising hours the average person is exposed to in a day, and regulations to limit this amount. Websites like Youtube and Facebook should stop showing ads to a user after they’ve hit their quota, and there should be stricter regulations to limit the amount of advertising shown to minors.
Companies like Google and Microsoft should be limited in what percentage of their revenue is from advertising. Ad revenue has warped these companies, every update Microsoft releases for Windows is focused on adding more features to trick the user into searching for something with Bing. All the money they’re burning with their Copilot AI, is just in the hopes that a few more people will use Bing instead of Google. After a company makes a certain amount of money from advertising, all future profits should be donated to a charity or refunded to the users.
We should also get rid of billboards. They are distracting to drivers and make roads less safe. The only public advertising allowed should be, if your band is playing nearby, you can put some posters up.
Good fucking gods yes please. At the very minimum get rid of the light up ones that are blinding as fuck at night just to sell garbage or hire for a weapons company.
I’m firmly a believer in forcing advertisers to sit in a room and be forced to watch their ad Clockwork Orange style on repeat for a week before they’re allowed to air it.
I’ve actually developed a fucking Pavlovian response to the words “but first, let’s talk about…” or any variation in a video, because 9 times out of 10 the creator is about to shill out for a scam product despite my ad blockers.
You should check out the sponsorblock extension, it doesn’t catch everything but I’d say it skips a solid 95% of sponsor segments. Or Youtube Vanced if you watch on mobile.
This is the sole reason I do not ever use YouTube for anything, ever.
I’ll spend hours working something out rather than watch a video on YouTube and have to spend any time at all skipping through the bullshit to find the info I need.
YouTube is responsible for a good portion of the enshittification of the internet by way of attention whores making a 20 minute video for what could have been 3 sentences in a written article.
Advertisements are detrimental to mental health. There should be studies to measure the amount of advertising hours the average person is exposed to in a day, and regulations to limit this amount. Websites like Youtube and Facebook should stop showing ads to a user after they’ve hit their quota, and there should be stricter regulations to limit the amount of advertising shown to minors.
Companies like Google and Microsoft should be limited in what percentage of their revenue is from advertising. Ad revenue has warped these companies, every update Microsoft releases for Windows is focused on adding more features to trick the user into searching for something with Bing. All the money they’re burning with their Copilot AI, is just in the hopes that a few more people will use Bing instead of Google. After a company makes a certain amount of money from advertising, all future profits should be donated to a charity or refunded to the users.
We should also get rid of billboards. They are distracting to drivers and make roads less safe. The only public advertising allowed should be, if your band is playing nearby, you can put some posters up.
Good fucking gods yes please. At the very minimum get rid of the light up ones that are blinding as fuck at night just to sell garbage or hire for a weapons company.
I’m firmly a believer in forcing advertisers to sit in a room and be forced to watch their ad Clockwork Orange style on repeat for a week before they’re allowed to air it.
Did you know that all billboards within 660 feet of the highway are technically in violation of federal law, but sign companies use loopholes to circumvent enforcement? That is according to Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching, Chapter 8, section “Advanced Billboarding”.
I’ve actually developed a fucking Pavlovian response to the words “but first, let’s talk about…” or any variation in a video, because 9 times out of 10 the creator is about to shill out for a scam product despite my ad blockers.
You should check out the sponsorblock extension, it doesn’t catch everything but I’d say it skips a solid 95% of sponsor segments. Or Youtube Vanced if you watch on mobile.
This is the sole reason I do not ever use YouTube for anything, ever.
I’ll spend hours working something out rather than watch a video on YouTube and have to spend any time at all skipping through the bullshit to find the info I need.
YouTube is responsible for a good portion of the enshittification of the internet by way of attention whores making a 20 minute video for what could have been 3 sentences in a written article.