by jason_oster | 2026-02-15 20:56:28+00:00
> This is like saying the primary purpose of advertising is to display media content.

No, the only purpose - and therefore the primary purpose - of advertising is to make a sale.

You are arguing economics. And while that is a valid stance, it is not the only point of view. You might even be arguing that word of mouth is advertising. That doesn't fit the definition of paying some party with an expectation of a larger return. That's the only part of advertising that needs to be addressed (e.g., banned or reformed). The part that is most harmful. Word of mouth and other means of non-exploitative ways to gain customers are completely reasonable.

You're trying to weasel your way to finding some inescapable loophole for some reason that I cannot understand. There's no need to protect predatory behavior like advertising.

> how often do you see a commercial product's documentation recommending that the customer use a competitor's product under circumstances when that would actually be to the customer's advantage?

Since you are really digging into semantics, here, I'll bite. The documentation doesn't need to explicitly say this. It implies that the product's feature set may not fit the user's needs by their very descriptions. The user will go to a competitor on their own accord when those features do not meet their needs.

> Meanwhile advertising also has secondary functions as well, like informing customers of product features they might not have been aware of, or informing them of risks or drawbacks of competing products, or providing active rather than passive notification for time-sensitive information like that a sale is happening, etc.

The products themselves do that. The company's website, brochure, or product catalog have the information. They don't need to broadcast the widest net possible with the MicroMachines guy speedrunning their feature list to fit a 60-second ad spot. In fact, the ads have such space and time constraints that the pertinent information literally cannot fit the allocation. Ads can only give very brief and very high level tidbits. It's a terrible model for information dispersal.

On the other hand, infomercials are 30 or 60 minute advertisements that tend to repeat the same thing ad infinitum. There's only so much you can say about knives, sunglasses, or exercise equipment. And yet, we have QVC. But here's the thing: I don't have to watch QVC. QVC isn't embedded into every website.

Although, plenty of low effort news sites really like to pin an autoplay video to the corner of my screen when I scroll down. These are nuisances. Somebody paying someone else to force me to watch or read something in the hopes that I will make a purchase. No. Just no. There's a good reason popups have been blocked on browsers by default for 20 years. Advertising is overly aggressive, and the margins are so piss poor that publishers effectively getting ripped off with ad revenue. It's insulting to publishers and much worse to consumers.

At least on Twitch, the largest contributors to a streamer's income are donations, subscriptions, bits, and Twitch Turbo viewers. Possibly in that order. Ads are worth practically nothing.

Shroud is one of the most highly paid streamers on Twitch/YouTube. He recently described that his YouTube ad revenue nets between $5,000-$9,000 per month [1]. This might seem like a lot, but his gross income is estimated to be up to $10 million to $12 million per year [2]. YouTube ads account for approximately between 0.5% and 1% of his income.

Smaller publishers (e.g., content creators) don't even break double digit ad revenues per month [3].

Please, stop defending advertising. It is indefensible. It's bad for everyone.

[1]: https://www.dexerto.com/youtube/shroud-leaks-youtube-revenue...

[2]: https://www.msn.com/en-in/sports/other/michael-grzesiek-s-ne...

[3]: https://www.mogul.club/blogposts/how-much-do-twitch-streamer...