The idea feels like sci-fi because you’re so used to it, imagining ads gone feels like asking to outlaw gravity. But humanity had been free of current forms of advertising for 99.9% of its existence. Word-of-mouth and community networks worked just fine. First-party websites and online communities would now improve on that.
The traditional argument pro-advertising—that it provides consumers with necessary information—hasn’t been valid for decades.
It’s necessary for monopoly capitalism to induce demand. It’s part of the planned economy.
You know there’s advertising in every single form of sociopolitical government, right?
Communism has advertising. As does socialism.