What if we taxed advertising?

What if, rather than banning advertising outright, we taxed it instead? Photo by Jo San Diego on Unsplash [ED: This is one that I’ve been ruminating on for a while. I have a lot of thoughts about a post-advertising/post-algo-driven-feed world. Ping me if this kind of thing interests you. I’d love to chat: 0/5 hats.] What If We Taxed Advertising? I recently read “What If We Made Advertising Illegal?“ at Simone.org (which generated considerable HackerNews discussion). It makes a bold case: advertising is corrosive, manipulative, and ultimately harmful to society. It fuels attention-hijacking, undermines truth, and distorts our shared reality. As with other once-tolerated hazards—lead in paint, indoor smoking—perhaps it’s time we called time on advertising altogether. But what if, rather than banning it outright, we taxed it instead? Reframing Advertising as a “Bad” Economics typically deals in “goods” — things with positive utility. But what about “bads”? These have negative utili ... Read full article.