this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2026
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I'd say it's not inherently unethical. How else would you find out about options for a thing you need?
How current the ad industry works however, can die in a fire.
Consent is a key factor.
If you mail me an ad? Fuck you.
If I search out your service and find you? Okay. Though people game this system obviously. Google used to fight back against this but now they don’t care and even have just given in, allowing pay to play. So fuck that too
I think an even more important aspect to me is something I don't have a good term for, but something like honesty/intrusiveness. The key issue is that advertisement should be an honest, truthful, non-deceitful representation of a good/service. But instead ads are designed to catch your eye, insert themselves into your thoughts with catchy music, play on your emotions even using kids, all while avoiding really telling you what they're about.
On the note of consent, it reminds me of a certain website for webnovels, which hosts ads submitted by users, for their own novels. It's been kind of ruined by GenAI, but it feels very different when the ads are often badly made memes about the premise of the story, since that's what you're already on the site for and it's the actual authors wanting to share their stories.
You can just search for it, you don't need ads for that. Ads is a really bad way to find out about options, because it's never about quality, it's all about appearance.
making an item accessible to being searched for is a form of advertising
How would you know what to search for? Some advertising is fine - a sign for a restaurant or industry mailers or magazines, "related products", etc etc are all very tame forms of advertising. The problem is hyperintrusive advertising which has now spiraled so far into hell that it drives a model of data harvesting and content slop that's slowly tainting all access to information we have.
Because of the needs I have, when I am hungry ill search for recipes or restaurants. When my apartment needs cleaning ill search for cleaning supplies, when I am bored ill look up what movies are playing.
I actually can not come up with a single situation where advertisement would be needed or helpful in anyway. I also do not have a problem with smaller advertisement, but in my dreams they are all banned regardless. Won't be missing those.
Okay, to break down the point: search for them where?
I guess on the internet or in the store.
So how do people get on the internet or in the store? Heck, how do you know that the store exists in the first place (and if the store doesn't have what you need, what do you do?)
I'm just after a middle ground - the current insanity of advertising is obviously too much, but the idea of doing away with it entirely isn't feasible either. Burning all the advertising execs at the stake might be a good place to start in terms of reforming things...
Do you not have friends? Word of mouth recommendations exist.
Relevant XKCD:
The value of word of mouth advertising is the reason we have to deal with the hell that is astroturfing ad campaigns.
Not all word of mouth is advertising. While word mouth advertising is powerful, that argument is still just a straw man.
This seems like it's not going to be a productive conversation if you're going to accuse me of using a strawman argument.
All word of mouth advertising is advertising. You're advertising that you like something to your friends. That it's viewed as "not advertising" by so many is the reason it's so valuable, and why so much effort is being expended to manufacture and subvert it, since it's one of the last forms left people aren't super conscious of. "Telling other people about the thing" is the oldest and most basic form of advertising, but it's still advertising, and people have worked to exploit it since the earliest records we have. Hell, even Ea Nasir advertised via word-of-mouth.
It seems like its not going to go anywhere because you think of all human communication as an act of manipulation.
Not all advertising is manipulation. The convo is going nowhere because you are No True Scotsmanning the definition of "advertisement".
If you're dropping a name of a product or service and describe anything about it to appeal to others, you are definitionally advertising.
... Run that one by me again? What??
Normally I look stores up using OSM and I believe I found my ISP through an comparison portal. Sure there could be advertisement involved and I definitely bought many things because of it. I just don't think we would need that in any way and that the quality of life would even go up if we banned all advertisement.
Its definitely not feasible, at least not in our life times. In my city there was a citizen initiative to ban a lot of public advertisements which did not went through as there were not enough people signing up. So apparently we are not ready for that yet. Burning all the advertising execs does sound like a sensible thing to do though :) Lets settle on that.
I see what you're saying, but the obvious distinction here is that if someone is actively searching e.g. Google for a product, they don't mind being shown products (and by extension being advertised to) - they're actively seeking it out. What everyone has a problem with is being shown advertisements for products when they aren't seeking them out and in fact actively want to avoid them.
Thank you! The unending intrusiveness of modern advertising really has killed and buried the useful parts of advertising by becoming the norm, I wholeheartedly agree.
In the ancient days we had a thing called the yellow pages.
Just FYI, any entry in the Yellow Pages other than the plain text, non-bold, name+phone number format entries were also paid for advertisements.
Yeah, exactly!
The search results are ads. If I'm looking to buy a table, those don't inherently come with a webpage. The website in its entirety is an ad.
it's inherently unethical to me because these companies have decided without my consent that they're entitled to my attention
I walk to the store, I check what's there, I ask an employee for help, then make my own decision. If it's shit, I don't get it again and tell who I know to avoid it. I don't get products that people I trust have had bas experiences with.
Advertisements are lying. Every dollar spent on marketing is a dollar that could have been spent either improving your product or paying your staff. If you advertise to me, I will actively avoid your product.
So you look for items in blank white cardboard boxes that only have a technical definition of the item contained inside?
Logos and packaging are advertising the product inside. Your friends recommending you a product is advertising that product. A company having a website is advertising. The grocery store advertising that an item is on sale is...advertising. It's all advertising.
What we actually hate is intrusive and malicious advertising as well as false advertising. Like billboards. Fuck billboards.
You walk to what store? How do you know the store exists? How do you know what the store sells? What if you live in a small town that doesn't have a store that sells the required thing? How do you know where to drive to to? All this basic information about the store itself is coming from advertising. It's not just about popups annoying you online.
When I moved to my current town, the first thing I did was figure out where all the grocery stores, the post office, and the library are. Do you really rely on advertising to tell you what to do? You can just see grocery store and say, "Yes, they probably sell cheese" and then go in?
Ok, what store do you go to in your town for specialized tools to fix your car?
The auto parts store across the street from the grocery store
It sounds like you're considering the sign above a store to be an advertisement.
It is. Why do you think store logos aren't just a plain text sign on the door? That would be far cheaper for the store to do.
...yes?
I mean, that's why mattress stores have so many physical locations. They're the closest thing to a clickable ad IRL, since they mostly exist as oversized billboards with a store attached