[ahallock]

Banning ads? That's just so authoritarian and absurd. I hope you never become king

[gchamonlive]

Regulation is freedom. Think of ads powering the web as current day's lead in gas.

[ahallock]

Regulation is freedom? Peace is war, too, I guess.

[AngryData]

I disagree, most advertising is just an attempt at manipulation, not just a genuine "our products exist and you might like them." I would consider not being legally manipulated, especially by financially interested groups, more free than the reverse.

[hunterpayne]

So are about 90% of the posts on this topic (any political topic really).

[coldtea]

Have we come to such a low cultural point that ads are seen as some kind of basic human right?

Fuck ads. What's absurd is tolerating them and the damage they do to media, consumers, kids, lesser and/or more honest businesses, culture, products, and so on all the way to the Windows and macOS system UIs.

[johnnyanmac]

We're on a startup entrepreneur site. I'm not surprised it's seen as the lifeblood of the industry here. It sort of is.

At the same time, this has the same energy of "if we release all the files, the system will collapse". Maybe we need the billionaires to feel some pain sometimes (even if yes, we'll feel more overall).

[lobf]

I work in ads... :-/

[BurningFrog]

Freedom of speech is a basic human right.

Ads are speech.

[forgetfreeman]

Tell that to the tobacco industry yeah?

[gchamonlive]

Yeah hospitals cost money