> => > => If your mouse trap is better then the big guy's trap, then > => people who need mouse traps will find you on the net - and > => all this can happen without the big ad money muscle that > => controls which little guys will make out and which wouldn't. > => The building, selling and buying still goes on, just on a > => more level playing field - and without the ads in our faces! => > => Bill > => > > => > > => > Virgil Bierschwale > => > > Having the world beat a path to your door because you've > invented a better mousetrap will only work if the world knows > what you have done. Your choices are word-of-mouth or > advertising. Advertising is the way to tell the world what > you've done while you are still alive to enjoy the fruits of > your labor. > > Advertising is part of the deal that exists between our > government and the entities that invested millions of dollars > to develop radio and television. It also subsidizes print > media. Without advertising, your newspaper might cost $3 a > day. PC Magazine, perhaps $18 per issue. Advertising is the > lubricant of commerce. > > Like everything else, there is good and bad and unspeakable > advertising. Believe me, I hate watching the Temperpedic > Mattress channel as much as you do. But there is also great > advertising and I don't want that to stop because it is often > quite entertaining.
Maybe this is just personal preference, but print ads in papers and magazines don't offend me because we a choice to read them or not, but the pushed-in-our-faces stuff, billboards and TV in particular, just get more annoying over time, and the more they are pushed, the more so. Geico is one example. Their ads are cute when they are new, but not the thousandth time. Spam is right up there too, and gaining steam. I'm getting some 200 spams a day now, and I can only see that number going up. I can't unilaterally delete them without at least a scan because I use spambeyes and it occasionally makes the wrong choice. Put it this way: I think we have a capacity for ads and that capacity has been exceeded. Can't blame any one advertiser in particular, it's the sum total of all of them. And the thing is, also, that when I actually do shop for something, the ads have nothing to do with the research and selection process which is focused on the product itself, not brand names. Remember when cable first came out, and we were going to pay for it versus free TV because it didn't come with ads? Look at it now. The old foot-in-the-door approach that let the elephant in. As for being the lubricant of commerce, I don't exactly agree. It might make a few percentage points difference in total sales volume, but people buy things anyway, so I think we can all afford to cut those few percentage points back for the sake of quality-of-life. Also I think ads skew spending for some people, taking spending money from one place and putting it in another. It also, to a degree, pumps up spending when people would be better off saving a little more. Maybe a middle of the road solution would be to put ads on a few selected channels. Ideally the whole thing will become inet based, and then the whole model can change completely. Bill > HALinNY _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
