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From: ald@garth.UUCP (Al Date)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers,alt.activism,talk.environment,comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: "advertising is not evil"
Message-ID: <68@garth.UUCP>
Date: 29 Jan 91 19:17:04 GMT
References: <856@argosy.UUCP> <156215@felix.UUCP> <1991Jan27.164332.22205@csn.org>
Reply-To: ald@garth.UUCP (Al Date)
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Organization: INTERGRAPH (APD) -- Palo Alto, CA
Lines: 38

In article <1991Jan27.164332.22205@csn.org> schwartz@latour.colorado.edu (Mike Schwartz) writes:
>In article <156215@felix.UUCP> asylvain@felix.UUCP (Alvin "the Chipmunk" Sylvain) writes:
>
>>Don't be so all-fired-up certain they're *not* doing a public service.
>>When you have a family of four to feed (as I do), you appreciate learn-
>>ing about bargains and getting coupons...
>
>I have nothing against making the information available.  What I don't
>like is having it forced on me.  If, for instance, advertising went to
>an intermediary electronic bulletin board service that people like you
>could browse, people like me wouldn't have to be subjected to it.  (This
>would also reduce the amount of glossy junk mail that fills our land
>fills.)  Of course, this wont happen, because another purpose of
>advertising is to convince people to buy things they don't need.

It would be more accurate to say that one of the purposes of advertising
is to get people to *try* something that they may not *think* they need.
Sometimes people discover that indeed their lives are enhanced unexpectedly.
Other times, they never buy the product again.

No amount of advertising will get people to repeatedly buy something 
that they dont really want, or the Yugo would've succeeded.  Another
great example was the failure of New Coke, in spite of record amounts
of advertising (at the time).  As long as there is open competition, laws
against fraud, and easy access to consumer information, the consumer is 
still sovereign.  Some advertisers engage in blatant "business propaganda,"
but freedom of speech must apply even to the most obnoxious,
or it has no meaning.  Let the buyer be a-ware.

With regard to the glossy junk mail that fills our landfills (and our
mailboxes), I wonder how much of that would go away if there was open
competition in First Class mail?  The way it is now, the users of
First Class have no choice but to subsidize the users of Third Class, 
through the monopoly pricing structure of the US Post Office.