Why Advertising Should Be Banned

The (radical) case against ads

Advertising is one of the primary business models of the cyberspace.

But advertising should be banned.

It sounds like a radical idea, I know, but by the end of this essay, I promise that you'll think differently.

Despite everything negative about advertising(and trust me, this essay will have plenty), they've ensured that vast portions of the Internet remains free to all.

Bandwidth, despite being cheap, isn't free. Storage isn't free. When you're starting your web browser to visit a website or just clicking on an app that requires an internet connection to work, that costs someone somewhere real money every single time. Given how bloated most websites today are, the costs are substantial- especially for the top visited websites and top used apps that appear free.

From endless videos on YouTube on any topic you can imagine, to the endless vertical scroll on Instagram or TikTok, to the latest happenings on X, consumption has never been more accessible and coupled with algorithms, there is no escape from the advertising that funds them.

The only you can argue that this is good in some way is that ads do help democratise access. Someone in Africa can access the same Google that a billionaire can access, both the billionaire and the kid in Nairobi is paying for the service with their data and attention, but the billionaire's attention is worth more because of their purchasing power, and thus whoever has bid the highest to perhaps show them an ad of a private jet, is subsidising the cost for thousands who can now access the same service.

However, even this argument is slightly flawed. Advertisement isn't the only way why some services can remain free. You shouldn't have to surrender your data and privacy to big tech companies just for them to serve you highly relevant ads, just because it seems to democratise access. There are lots of sites who don't depend on ads, who are profitable, and who still don't run ads on their freemium tier.

The market forces though, dictate that as the losing move.

People hate ads, but they don't hate ads enough. So, in theory, any website that takes an opinionated stance against ads and decides not to have them, would have to charge higher in their premium tier than the similar product with ads - all things remaining equal.

Even spending on advertising isn't really a choice anymore, because if your competitors are spending on ads, then you must play the same zero sum game and spend on ads as well.

This makes advertising one of those lose-lose situations where if you're not playing the game, you're on the losing side. If you play the game, you're handsomely rewarded. But everyone else using your product loses (their time, attention and money), and in a game between you losing and your customers losing - you'd choose the option where you still get to keep playing the game.

II.

To understand the dangers of advertising, we have to start from its roots - Copywriting.

Even today, copywriting is a highly paid gig because it's a mixture of the greatest psychological and hypnotic techniques, coupled with the art of flawless writing.

When an ad or product description says, "By now, you've hopefully realized your razor isn't working" - the writers are hoping the "By now" passes through to your subconscious as "Buy Now", intentionally influencing you to click on the "Buy Now" button. And tricks like these are just the tip of the iceberg of what's possible, with just words.

Short-form video ads are the pinnacle of this manipulation. Platforms like TikTok have turned ads into predatory reflexes. You can't just watch some of these ads- as they're specifically engineered to instantly grab your attention, stopping you from scrolling on, and tactics range from harmless like "hook" questions - "What happened on the week I made a million dollars?" "How to cook the perfect perfume" "This cryptocurrency might make you rich", etc, to deliberately shocking videos that shows the first few frames of something interesting happening like cars about to crash, and people about to fall, before pausing it to show you the ad in context of the video. Such ads hijack your lizard brain in 0.8 seconds, using anything from strobe-lights and quick editing, disorienting cuts, intentionally wrong information or just plain ol' misdirection.

Now, you might think that maybe, it's not so bad. After all, because of the Internet and algorithms that dominate the small number of sites where everyone seems to be, you can supremely target anyone you want, so most people are receiving relevant ads anyway, right?

That's what every tech company wants you to believe but in reality, ads prey on the vulnerable. Microtargeting algorithms stalk the depressed with antidepressant ads, the indebted with payday loans, and the lonely with OnlyFans promotions. From preying on the insecurities of teenage girls in developing countries with ads of skin-lightening creams, to preying on those most likely to gamble away their life savings with multiple reminders of instant riches on online casinos, micro targeting was always about maximising profits over all means possible.

And this "all means possible" is what makes advertising so profoundly evil, because everything is bound to get filled with ads until there is considerable pushback, because the more ads you can serve while maintaining attention and engagement, the more profit you'll make.

III.

The infrastructure to track your every move already exists. That is why when you glance at something on a site briefly, you're bombarded with ads of the same thing - to influence you to finally complete the loop of purchase. Because you're tracked through your phone, through the sites you visit, through the videos you watch and feeds you scroll through, all of this data translates into carefully placed ads while you're on a mindless dopamine binge - the perfect combination for making impulsive purchases.

Just like propaganda serves the state, ads serve the private. Just like propaganda erodes trust in the media, ads erode trust in everyone around you.

You can't trust the influencer or the YouTuber because at the end of the day, they're all peddling ads. All content is content being made to fill up the space between ads- which is why most content is mediocre. This algorithmic mediocrity has grown now to an exponential scale - where even "micro" influencers can have affiliate links, selling things to the hundreds of people following them, so at every level of the digital space, there is an erosion of trust.

As a result, consumers are worse off. If "Advertising should be banned" sounds crazy to you, still, it's probably because you've grown to accept the state of the world as is. If that's you, I urge you to do one thing. If you don't have AdBlock installed on your browser, download it (Search for uBlock Origin), install it, and browse the web for an hour. If you have Adblock installed, turn it off and browse the web for an hour. Both experiences should at least make the case that something is deeply wrong.

I don't think the solution is to paywall everything - as monthly / annual subscriptions (another core business model of the internet) often ends up remaining inaccessible to the majority of people, but there can be free business models that don't depend on ads. Freemium services without ads - like ChatGPT, is an excellent alternative and a real look at what this ad-less future might look like.

But you might argue that unlike OpenAI, small businesses don't have the support of venture capital and need ads to survive. That's a fair question, and can be applied to every possible use-case of ads which is from a certain point of view - positive, that is, they are useful and essential for one side of the table - the advertisers, and it's a long table - but what you're essentially asking is this -

What about discovery? We didn't have highly personalised ads for a long time and discovery worked fine. Word of mouth and community platforms where people share recommendations with each other is more than enough. There is a reason why the suffix "reddit" is added to most Google searches about products - and the reason is that people are looking for opinions of other people and recommendations from them about what's best. The propaganda of advertising tries to sell you the notion that without ads, the internet won't remain free - but in reality, it's only a minority of free services who have to quickly pivot to a better, more ethical business model. They surely won't die, but they won't be able to kill (the time, attention and future of humanity) either.

I think we should at least start having this conversation and taking it more seriously. The best way to do that is to suggest something which seems outright radical - That advertising should be banned, but it is only radical because you're used to slop and spam that plague us all. You're used to every site on the planet tracking you, your phones just offering you an illusion of privacy, and your data being harvested every second of the day.

Banning advertisements would instantly have very positive second order effects. It'd make it pointless to optimise algorithms for maximum engagement, and not only would that lead to a better experience across all social platforms, it'll disincentivize the production and steady shipment of mediocrity.

I think the greatest positive secondary effect it can have- is that people are going to be happier. For ads to work, they have to convince you that something is missing from your life. So ads actively work to impose these insecurities which are conveniently solved by the product they advertise at the end of the ad. Just like the news tries to make everyone's problem your problem, ads try to make every insecurity- your insecurity. Ban ads, and this horrible loop instantly stops.

A machine of psychological warfare instantly ceases to exist.

Now, I don't know how we'll go about banning it. It’s a 600B dollar industry that shows no signs of slowing down, and everyone is worse of for it. So think of this essay as a thought experiment on something you previously considered radical, but hopefully, I've convinced you by now that it's not so radical as you think it is.