Conversation

Notices

1. Bernie (codewiz@mstdn.io)'s status on Thursday, 06-Jun-2019 06:13:13 UTC Bernie

   • Aaron Wolf
   • Snowdrift.coop
   • Dave Lane 🇳🇿

   @wolftune @lightweight @snowdrift Well, but it's not the same websites though: toyota.com buys ads and pays them with revenue from car sales, while, say, lwn.net and phoronix.com use the ads income to finance daily Linux news.

   Both these sites also ask users to subscribe (which I do), but won't you agree that they might have to scale down their operations if they were forced to survive solely on subscription revenue?

   • Aaron Wolf (wolftune@social.coop)'s status on Thursday, 06-Jun-2019 06:34:02 UTC Aaron Wolf

     in reply to

     • Snowdrift.coop
     • Dave Lane 🇳🇿

     @codewiz @lightweight @snowdrift

     In a world without all the harms advertising supports, all the people who struggle to keep LWN going could be better off and not need as much direct income.

     If Apple/Microsoft/Google ads disappeared, it would be easier to get GNU messages to people's attention. If LWN had 100× audience size, they could have at least 5× subscribers.

     Snowdrift.coop and crowdmatching aims to increase the portion of readers who donate too.

     I'm not pushing unilateral disarmament

     Bernie repeated this.
   • Bernie (codewiz@mstdn.io)'s status on Thursday, 06-Jun-2019 06:43:15 UTC Bernie

     in reply to

     • Aaron Wolf
     • Snowdrift.coop
     • Dave Lane 🇳🇿

     @wolftune @lightweight @snowdrift Would you be more favorable to advertisement if we were to outlaw the most negative forms of it ?

     For instance, many countries restrict advertisement of addictive substances and gambling. The US, UK and other common law countries prohibited provably false advertisement... but deceptive and psychologically manipulative advertisement is still fine.

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_advertising#Regulation_and_enforcement

   • Aaron Wolf (wolftune@social.coop)'s status on Thursday, 06-Jun-2019 06:47:38 UTC Aaron Wolf

     in reply to

     • Snowdrift.coop
     • Dave Lane 🇳🇿

     @codewiz @lightweight @snowdrift

     I support reasonable regulations on ads. And yes, blocking the advertising of some of the worst things is good. But it's sorta like my quip elsewhere in this thread about social-investing.

     Yes, we should ban marketing of prescription medication directly to consumers. But that's just a start.

     I do find far more sympathy with arguments that maybe bans and regulations won't work or will have unintended consequences. I don't sympathize as much with "ads are fine"

     Bernie repeated this.
   • Bernie (codewiz@mstdn.io)'s status on Thursday, 06-Jun-2019 07:00:44 UTC Bernie

     in reply to

     • Aaron Wolf
     • Snowdrift.coop
     • Dave Lane 🇳🇿

     @wolftune @lightweight @snowdrift
     Yesterday at the combini I saw "protein pasta", which is nothing but regular pasta because wheat contains protein.

     Intentionally taking advantage of consumers' naivety is morally equivalent to false advertisement, but it can't be punished as easily 😞