What If We Made Advertising Illegal?

What if we banned all advertising? Not regulate it—abolish it. This proposal would transform manipulation machines, and maybe save democracy itself. A thought experiment worth considering. What if we made all advertising illegal? It's such a wild idea that I've never heard it in the public discourse. Even saying it seems so far outside the Overton window that it makes nuking hurricanes sound reasonable (as some politicians proposed). But why? It makes perfect sense. The financial incentives to create addictive digital content would instantly disappear, and so would the mechanisms that allow both commercial and political actors to create personalized, reality-distorting bubbles: Clickbait, listicles, and affiliate marketing schemes would become worthless overnight. Algorithm-driven platforms like Instagram and TikTok that harvest and monetize attention, destroying youth, would lose their economic foundation. Facebook, X, Google, YouTube—all would cease to exist in their current fo ... Read full article.