Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Here's my hot take on this.

If I want a product, it better be out of my own free will. If I wanted AI assisted ways to learn languages, I'd be perfectly capable of researching what's out there. If I see an ad, out of principle I won't pay a cent for anything, unless maybe it's literally the best thing since sliced bread.

Ads provide negative value to me as a consumer, therefore I want them banned.

But the economy! But the jobs!

What's the purpose of both of these? To address people's needs and wishes, or to plant new needs and wishes in the brain of consumers to then extract capital out of them?

If a product is worth creating it could be created, bought, and made profitable in an ad-free society as well. The problem is it's an arms race. A good product + ads will always win against an equivalent product without. Everybody has to do ads because everybody else does them. So going ad-free only works if everybody does it at once, and I believe that requires regulation. Of course I'm also not opposed to you buying ads to promote your product, I'm opposed to the fact that the market forces you to.

Trees haven't figured out how to all reach sunlight without using enormous resources to grow high. States haven't figured out how to all stay secure without spending enormous sums on defense. This situation is similar but I feel we have a good shot at saving ourselves a whole lot of trouble by heavily limiting the ways in which advertising can legally be done.




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: