Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

To me ads are fundamentally about misleading you, manipulating you, or in short: making you do something that you wouldn't do otherwise. This to me is morally wrong on a base level. Advertisement is an attempt to attack/manipulate your vulnerable mammal brain to make you do something against your interest (be it buying a product, voting on someone, etc). In other words, to do something that you wouldn't do rationally, or wouldn't do without this prodding.

Exactly. I don't remember the words but my parents were like "it's an ad, don't believe it." It was the time of TV commercials and little else but I think it's still a good piece of advice now.

This is a very immature view of advertising, that, unfortunately many advertisers share -- and it leads to scummy ads, with no eye on the long term relationship with the person viewing the ad.

However, many ads are not deceptive in any way, and instead simply offer something of value to people who may be interested, without any deceit, psychological trick, or ulterior motive.

Just because there are bad ads does not mean that all advertising is bad.

I'd say the ads are still deceptive even if they weren't created with that intention. It doesn't need to be sneaky, but if it's unsolicited then the consumer didn't opt for their attention to be steered toward it.

edit: removed example as it distracts from the point.

You are still using the reasoning of "Here is an example of a bad ad, therefore all ads are bad."

> if it's unsolicited then the consumer didn't opt for their attention to be steered toward it.

Isn't that everything in the world, always?

Why do I have to walk past the cereal to get to the milk on a supermarket, why I am being so deceived? After all, I didn't consent to being bombarded by all those car emblems on the highway on my way to work, and I definitely didn't agree to see the orange bar at the top of this page, that "Y" is hunting me I say! why is my attention being stolen away?

If I were king, all ads would have to be black text on white background, containing ONLY the name of the product/service, its description and advertised merits. The description would have to consist of well-defined and falsifiable statements only.

> Isn't that everything in the world, always?

If you're saying advertising is a thing in the world, that's correct.

We have the ability to adjust this particular aspect of our landscape but your questions illustrate it pretty well. Most people don't seem to get very upset about advertising, and therefore it continues to surround us. I don't think there's anything that any one of us can do at this point, we're collectively shaping this world into the one with all the cereal and car emblems and have been for a while.

People don't act against their self-interest unless deceived. There are misleading ads that are immoral like "payday loans can get you out of debt", but the vast majority of ads (that I see) are informational, like "store X is having a sale". That's just giving me information to make a decision about ("$N is a reasonable amount for me to spend on this thing I didn't previously want").

I could make a similarly wrong blanket statement about news articles. "The news is fundamentally about misleading you into believing something against your interest". I could make a blanket statement about conversations between two people. "Listening to someone talk is letting them manipulate your brain into thinking something it wouldn't without this prodding". There are deceptive ads, news articles, and people, but you don't have a good moral argument against all ads, news articles, or people.

"Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket."

Gordon Comstock - George Orwell's protagonist in Keep the Aspidistra Flying

And the product's non-obfuscated cost.

Prediction: in your kingdom, product names would evolve to become "World's Best Hair Tonic" with "World's Best" being the company's brand/trade name...

I'm not the biggest fan of advertising, but "here's a funny quote that a fictional person said" doesn't really bring much to the discussion

Say you develop some really cool new product that will really help people's lives be better... how would you suggest you get people to know about it?

> People don't act against their self-interest unless deceived.

They can also be stupid.

What if I took your argument, and instead of making it about ads, made it about all human communication? Isn’t all communication intended to influence the thoughts of the listener? I don’t think attempting to influence someone’s behavior to your gain by providing them with information is inherently immoral - we all do it constantly (eg. when messaging a friend to ask them over for a drink, I am manipulating them so I can enjoy their company).

Unlike a lot of communication, advertising is paid, which is certainly relevant. I get it if you’re against commerce as a whole - if you believe that any interaction motivated by money is inherently exploitative, I’m sympathetic.

But if you aren’t willing to go there, advertising is a healthy part of a well-functioning economy. If you’ve invested to develop a good product, one that users would happily pay for, one that has positive value (ie. you can make it for $10, it provides $30 of utility to the user, so you can sell it to the user for $20 and you and the user both gained $10 in utility), what is wrong with paying to inform people about it? Organic word of mouth is slow - if that were the only way we could find out about changes in what is available in the market, much less investment could be profitably made in improved products. Positive investment ROI requires a reliable pathway to tell people that you have something they might want, and advertisement is perfectly suited to fill that role.

What Google AdWords used to be, just plain text that was generally pretty relevant to whatever you were viewing, clearly defined as an ad.

> If I were king, all ads would have to be black text on white background, containing ONLY the name of the product/service, its description and advertised merits. The description would have to consist of well-defined and falsifiable statements only.

Sorry, but for a lot of products this approach is simply ridiculous. I want to know what I'm buying looks like before I buy it in many cases. E.g., clothes, sportswear, footwear, furniture, electric guitars - even food.

A lot of communication is about honest expressions of one's experience, and reflecting others' such experiences, as well as asking for feedback, or asking for another's input.

These modes are all very foreign to advertising.

Except it would be: World's Best(tm) Hair Tonic -- I think I could parse that correctly.

I don't believe so.

Advertisements done right should be a passive consumption model.

I want this -> bunch of leads for what you are looking for.

Advertisements nowadays are focused around an active attention-consuming model. You have companies fighting for any in they can to get themselves situated at the forefront of your attention.

There is really no excuse for it, and the dark paths attach has opened in terms of advancing surveillance technology, and harboring an insatiable appetite for as much information on potential buyer's as possible has frankly ruined any credibility or claim to benignity that I could be bothered to extend to the industry.

I could even tolerate blatant puffery if advertising would just cut out all the 1984-tier privacy destroying behavior.

I don't mind ads. I mind mental intrusiveness and privacy invasion 24/7/365.

If you go to your local supermarket, you will see many branded items with varied fonts and pictures. This packaging is essentially an ad for the item. If you removed that, which you could do, as some brands like Brandless have done, people would not know what to buy. The packaging itself provides value. So too with ads online.

Perhaps a webpage that people can go to to browse products (an “adstore”).

You’re right - we should allow one photo - presenting product only (i.e. without pictures of scandily clad women used to sell for example wallpaper paste, as is common in my country), against a clear background.

Yep that was pretty cool, I respected Google for it.

If I remember correctly, calling products "best" or similar is illegal in Sweden unless you can point to verifiable neutral source such as product tests etc. I'm sure it's corruptible to some extent, but at least it is possible to prevent these things at large.