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chambo622 | 7 years ago

Strange but accurate analogy

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esotericn|7 years ago

Advertising _is_ strange.

I'm trying to do a thing and you've put this colorful flashy box in front of it.

Imagine if people tried to "monetize" their conversations. They might claim that otherwise they couldn't afford to talk to anyone (rent ain't gonna pay itself, right).

You'd be talking about football or whatever and suddenly a different tone of voice would emanate from your conversational partner for 10 seconds whilst they talk about some Super New Product.

As far as I can tell the whole industry is impolite, rude, gauche, just a bit icky, really.

rolandog|7 years ago

Advertising makes me angry.

I live in a city that has a characteristic mountain. So, naturally, advertisers are placing their towering billboards so that they constantly block the view when you're driving on the avenue that would have the best unimpeded line of sight.

jobigoud|7 years ago

On certain forums that allow signatures people are putting links to their companies/projects or affiliate links, etc. This disrupts the flow of conversation in pretty much the way you describe.

It was (maybe still is) particularly annoying on Bitcoin forums for example, where signatures can contain images.

thaumasiotes|7 years ago

> Imagine if people tried to "monetize" their conversations.

People do try to monetize their conversations. That's why "networking" is a different word than "socializing".

kerouanton|7 years ago

A french Telco provider tried this once. You could get free calls from your mobile but had to listen to an ad before being connected. It didn't last long.

closeparen|7 years ago

Financial advisors, insurance agents, lawyers, and all sorts of white-collar professionals are expected to sell their firm’s services through their own networks. Of course, human salesmen are paid more for tact, class, and effectiveness that for raw impression count.

rising-sky|7 years ago

I'm surprised this was not an episode of black mirror, sounds crazy ...but that's just me in 2018 thinking that

squarefoot|7 years ago

Agreed, and the reason advertising is so pervasive literally stepping between us and anything we consume is that markets are saturated with products: too many products compared to potential customers, so that they have to fight to get the first spot between us and their competitors. People don't look for a product anymore, it's the other way around, and it's not going to stop unless we focus on the real problem which is not advertising but the monster giving it full control: ie our flawed economic system.