Why?
In principle, advertising is a way to propagate information in a market, trying to match offer with demand. Without any such mechanism, markets would be hugely inefficient (i.e., it would be annoying to find a shop selling what you are looking for, since you would need to visit many before finding one that sells that thing).
The problem with ads, like you are saying, is that being scummy and dishonest is by far the most effective way of attracting demand.
> In principle, advertising is a way to propagate information in a market, trying to match offer with demand.
No, that's what a Consumer Reports-style review site is. Independent review matches offer with demand. Search engines (not including the ads on search engines) match offer with demand.
There's no "matching" with ads: the goal is to jam your product in front of people as much as possible. And in fact there's often no demand to match with. Ads are just rich barging into your attention to beg for more money with lies.
> Without any such mechanism, markets would be hugely inefficient (i.e., it would be annoying to find a shop selling what you are looking for, since you would need to visit many before finding one that sells that thing).
I'd caution you against trusting anyone who talks about "efficient" without talking about what benefit is being maximized and what cost is being minimized. Ads are efficient in the sense that they help maximize sales for minimum quality of product: that's not a desirable efficiency. If we (consumers) want to maximize quality and minimize cost, then independent review is a much better way to find products.
And that is a huge part of problem with sustainability and magnification of problems that would otherwise stay local. PFAS, microplastics, pollution... It's all consequence of overproduction of useless things that are consumed by society manipulated by ads.
The product is "ad" itself if it is good. If not, you need extra advertisements.
I think this is a category error. Those bad things aren't driven by ads. Ads drive economies of scale possible if people have heard of your product without word of mouth, which lower prices and help producers understand what people want. Productiveness will sometimes drive things like microplastics, as it's hard to know the effects of doing something new without doing that thing.
That's the theoretical response. In practice: how would I sell my car without ads? Would I sit and wait for people to be attracted to it and ask me if it's for sale?
In a functioning society, ads would be illegal, and we'd have independent review sites you could submit your car to, which would give consumers true information about your car in comparison to other cars.
In the society we have: you have to advertise. I don't blame companies with a product for advertising it, because that's the only way to sell a product within our broken system. But I do insist that we identify this blight correctly and stop pretending that it's a necessary thing, because that's the only way we fix it.
Announce your car sale in a catalogue of local cars for sale. Ads in catalogues are tolerable because only people desiring to see ads will pick up such a catalogue. Ads placed in places intended to be visible to people who aren't specifically trying to look for ads are the problem. Those ads which try to force themselves on people have an inherently adversarial relationship with people, and therefore we're under no moral obligation to tolerate it. People who make it their business to advertise in that manner are absolute gutter scum.
> That's the theoretical response. In practice: how would I sell my car without ads?
You make an announcement that you have a car to sell. Maybe provide some details. I don't think people mind announcement. They mind the intrusion and manipulation. So, I don't mind seeing in the paper that someone has a car to sell. But I absolutely hate when I'm forced to watch that you have the most beautiful car when I'm just loading an article.
Still an announcement. But if the goal is to promote, then it’s an advertisment. There’s a difference between making known that there’s something to buy and enticing people to buy something. It may be the way to do business (because competition) but that does not means I should subject myself to it, especially its current form.
I should specify "corporate product advertisement".
Also... You advert a selling of product that is already made and used. I tough about those silly ads for new kind of electronics, cars, junk food, etc.
Btw, why are you selling your car?
- ...help producers understand what people want.
You always need what you don't have and others do. Do you?
> Also... You advert a selling of product that is already made and used.
So no one should know about new products for sale, only second hand ones?
> You always need what you don't have and others do. Do you?
I'm selling it because it doesn't have 7 seats for when we have overseas relatives who can't afford to rent a car when they visit, and its diesel engine is not necessary for my much-reduced weekly mileage. Assuming I want just because others have is extremely shallow.
Why? In principle, advertising is a way to propagate information in a market, trying to match offer with demand. Without any such mechanism, markets would be hugely inefficient (i.e., it would be annoying to find a shop selling what you are looking for, since you would need to visit many before finding one that sells that thing).
The problem with ads, like you are saying, is that being scummy and dishonest is by far the most effective way of attracting demand.