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Adblockers stop publishers serving ads to (or even seeing) 1bn web users - Press Gazette
(pressgazette.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2025
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Yeah public broadcasting is under attack because of advertising. Advertising fuels private broadcasting and it's in their owner's interest to push anti public broadcasting propaganda.
Any system humans design to serve us as a society will over time become "min maxed" by people or institutions seeking to maximize their profit or gain more power or maintain power in the face of changes. Advertising is a primary vector how those with the most economic power can influence society without people even realizing it. And everything is political.
For example take the ratings and something like yellow pages and announcements for new businesses like a plumber - needing to invest additional capital in advertising has an effect too. It makes it so new businesses are more indentures, more like wage slavery, than if no advertising existed at all. Obviously no advertising at all would favor seniority. But we have advanced in technology since we designed our government systems - there should be an independent "forth estate" or fifth or something for economics and regulation. They could be independently voted on to the executive or legislative. And their job would be to deal with regulation in the public's interest, and sponsor things like an independent ratings portal that is moderated, and force shops like amazon to use the independent ratings for the products and the vendors. It will stay a struggle to stay ahead of people trying to abuse the system for gain, but right now we pretend the tools we have right now are somehow god given. We Europeans are far more conservative than we like to think.
If we want to have any resiliency against what is coming (because we destroyed our planet and let wealth inequality spiral and social media is nearly completely controlled by plutocrats) we need to push for better tools to govern democratically. And advertising is a major obstacle because it allows unmitigated influence of those who own the world.
TLDR: We don't *have to * screw over new plumbers, but we should do it if we had to because stopping the brainwashing is more important.
Well I agree we need a better structure to keep people in check I agree with that. Things like social media and a companies like RTL having a massive stake in private television will help to destroy the planet and keep the difference between the lower class, the middle class and the rich.
But I disagree that we should just get rid of all advertisement completely. Again there is nothing wrong with banner ads, websites, vans with logo's and other low stakes form of advertisement.
If governments would start to pay YouTubers instead of YouTubers earning money from adverts and sponsors it would not only allow the government to control the narrative, but people will still abuse the system. Same way as that social security or subsidies are abused currently.
Consdering I work in an accounting firm I do see the amount of cost some companies have with advertisment, but most of them with a lot of costs do it to get more customers. Some of them need to do it to keep their profit rising or the same.
There is an issue with misleading adverts including misleading prices (excluding tax), there is an issue with hidden ads (like logo's). But personally I think social media (including Lemmy) is just the bane of our existence. Yes a lot of that is funded by adverts, but also by selling your data and the like. Personally I believe that they are brainwashing people more with that, than with a lot of the advertisement. Ow and the people who keep on defending companies like they are their family are also a big part, people saying they are going to get Domino's instead of pizza f.e.