Technology
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.
Rules:
1: All Lemmy rules apply
2: Do not post low effort posts
3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff
4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.
5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)
6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist
7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed
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In my opinion it's possible for advertisements to be ethical, but they would be nothing like the ones we see today. I had a comment on a philosophy-post about that. It would come down to two criteria, namely neutrality and consent. That means the advertisements are more like honest reviews, not made or paid by the company that sells the product, but independently and voluntarily made. And consent means the ones who consume the advertisements genuinely want to experience them. One could argue that YouTube advertisements are not like that, as they are promoted by the companies and people generally consume them only since they thought they had no choice in order to watch the video.
Advertising is inherently biased. What you describe, "not made or paid by the seller" is NOT advertising.
Imagine I came to you and say "would you like this sandwich?". You might take it, if you felt hungry or liked the filling. Now imagine I come up to you and say "I'll pay you 100 (insert currency) to eat this sandwich". Suddenly, the sandwich becomes decidedly less appealling...
The sandwich is advertising, and eating it is exposing it to your brain. If it were really beneficial to you, no one would be getting paid.
If what i described is not advertisement, then how would you call it? It sounds like a very important thing to define. Not everything is commercial or meant to be. And do you at least agree that advertisements should have consent? That was the other criterium.
Advertising is by definition sponsored. If I tell you I think a product is good, and I'm not getting paid, that's just called advice.
I have searched just now "define: advertisement" on the duckduckgo search engine. This is the first result. It states that an advertisement is just "a public notice", no sponsorship required.