Researchers find inverse correlation between advertising and life satisfaction - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2020/01/advertising-makes-us-unhappy <comment><USER2> This reminds me of an anecdote a friend told me: This friend dedicates his time in going to very rural areas/towns here in Mexico to implement government programs.

At some point in the past he got to a town were the cantina had just gotten the only TV in town... apparently people in the town were generally happy, and they had everything they needed... so in their view they were not poor.

But once they started watching TV, they started seeing the Nikes, the fridges, the trips to Europe and all that "stuff" that they couldn't get... and there they started to ask why couldnt they get all that and thus started feeling poor.

Amazing what advertising can do for perceived "needs"

<comment><USER3> That raises profound and fascinating philosophical questions about the nature of knowledge and happiness. I wonder how many of those people would choose to forego the knowledge of what they don't have if it meant they would be happy again. On the other hand, is that even a meaningful question to ask, given it's not possible?

Which of course leads to the ethical question: is it right for people to live in ignorance if it makes them happy, it it's not their choice? Is it fundamentally better for people to be happy rather than aware of massive inequality (up to and including significant poverty)? How much would be appropriate to hide, for how much additional happiness? Is it better in the long run for some to be unhappy if it brings attention to inequality?

I don't have any of those answers, but they're interesting and challenging questions.

<comment><USER4> > is it right for people to live in ignorance if it makes them happy, it it's > not their choice?

I wouldn't pretend to answer if it is "right" (what does it even mean), but a lot of people already do live in ignorance. Maybe not in the straight way of ignorance of not being able to recollect some information, but certainly in terms of assigning certain labels and judgements to it. So many people watch a TV with someone having a great time and think/feel to themselves things like "they stole the money somehow to get there", "they had rich parents", "they are not happy anyway", "life is unfair, they got their riches through unfairness", "money is the root of all evil", "money brings unhappiness", "it's not their real life, just some fake instagram story" etc.

<comment><USER5> We all live in ignorance. Our most epic skill is to work with incomplete information. We use to praise people for being able to do arithmetic in their head or memorize large amounts of information. The computers showed that those abilities are only challenging because we lack the "design" for it.

Advertisement, like Instagram or facebook is tailored to give us the impressions the Joneses are doing much better for themselves. Some of this is true, some is designed to tap into this emotion.

I actually woke up 30 min ago iterating over all the things I didn't get in life that most other people had in abundance. It's not the first time I pondered that. After the excuses you mention above I always come back to a thought I had when I was I think 6 years old:

Other peoples lives, their expectations and their opinions are not really all that interesting or important. They could be if they put minimal effort into creating or evolving them. In stead they just copy this stuff from the next guy without review - then dedicate their lives to living up to them.

I consider myself extremely privileged to escape from that formula. I've never written it down before but happiness now starts with having oxygen to breath, then comes having water to drink, food and a place to sleep share the 3rd spot, 4th is having the mind set to think about something, 5th is a sense of safety and the privilege to implement the thoughts, 6th is to be able to share the thoughts and brainstorm, 7th is to have good people in my life, 8th is to be able to pay my bills, 9th a decent set of garments etc

Having what other people are having is still on the list some place but to have 1-4 makes for a fantastic life. 5 includes health and fitness. The rest is really just nonsense by comparison.

What I'm trying to say is that satisfaction is overrated. You get only so much of it, trying to optimize for it just diminishes it.

> the survey question "How satisfied are you with your life?"

Not satisfied? Well good! Time to accomplish something!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I spent a lot of time in Vermont many years ago. I'd been there a little while, blissfully unaware, before someone told me "yeah, they banned billboards here in the sixties - you didn't notice?" I hadn't consciously noticed, no, but I'd spent my time there until that comment driving around stunned at how beautiful the place was. Now I knew the reason for that (well, partial reason - billboards or not, it's a pretty part of the world, especially in summer and fall).

I've thought a lot about that billboard ban ever since, and I'm convinced it enabled a measure of calm in me.

I'm not sure how much I buy the study talked about in the OP's article - spurious correlation strikes me as a possibility - but the intuition about advertising is spot-on, I think. It'd cool if our societies had more ad-free spaces.

<comment><USER7> This is why I take 280 instead of 101 when traveling to and from SF to South Bay even though it's slightly longer.

<comment><USER8> Driving 280 in 1983 was one of the most significant events in getting me to want to move here from Chicago.

I don't think it was the lack of billboards. But if there _were_ billboards, it sure would feel different.

<comment><USER9> I've always considered it the "rich man's freeway". No semis allowed, no billboards, lots of either open-space preserves or mansions in the scenery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Advertising is an attack on your psyche. Its very existence is an assumption that you should be dissatisfied with your life, and any advertising 'tricks' (only showing happy, beautiful people using it etc, aka 95% of the content of most advertisements) beyond purely factual statements about the product are explicitly designed to hijack every possible unconscious bias in their target audience to make them want it.

Sure, if you are concentrating and paying attention to the effect an ad has on you and the tricks it's using to manipulate you, you can pretty easily analyze and counteract the effect. But can you keep that up for every moment of every day, ever vigilant resisting the imposition of another's will onto yours, wriggling into your mind one tiny crack at a time?

Don't blink.

<comment><USER11> >you can pretty easily analyze and counteract the effect.

How? From my previous research I've found that it's one of those things that even if you know you're being tricked, it still affects your decision making.

<comment><USER10> I agree, but I've seen people insist otherwise. s/can pretty easily/may be able to/ is more reasonable I guess, but the point of that sentence is that even if you can perfectly counter it, can you do it perfectly forever?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I was the first person in my family to do the "cord cutting" thing, where I only had an Amazon Prime and Netflix account, and a bunch of DVDs and Blu-Rays (around 2012). People asked me why, and I said that I think it's dumb to pay money for advertisements, and that I think ads are bad for you.

My brother-in-law is overall a smart guy, but he works at Taco Bell full-time, making minimum wage in NYC (~$15/hour). He decided that he _needed_ the newest iPhone 11, presumably because of some good marketing, spent over a grand (through financing of course...ugh), and he'll spend the next year paying it off.

I have nothing against the iPhone, I have one, but let's be honest here, do most people even benefit from the "newest" phones? He mostly watches YouTube and listens to music, and occasionally plays PUBG, all of which you could do on previous versions. He's also not some passionate photographer, so the fancier camera isn't going to make a huge difference.

<comment><USER13> These stories are too common.

I would guess that the median* wage on HN is probably around 5x what your brother-in-law makes. And I would also guess that many of us are perfectly content with old phones, old cars, and generally reduced consumption. Hell, I buy clothes at thrift/resale shops when I find something nice that fits.

What are people of means (relatively) seeing? Is it because we have more leisure time and can afford to filter the media we consume?

*I'm consciously using median because I would guess that FAANG and the coasts skew the mean.

<comment><USER12> That's what I find strange too; I _can_ afford to get the new iPhone every year or two if I wanted (most software engineers probably can), and yet I plan on keeping mine until it's dead, broken, or stolen. I don't own a car, but if I did it would probably the cheapest car in reasonably good shape that gets reasonably good gas mileage.

There's a part of me that wonders if a lot of it boils down to education. My brother-in-law is relatively smart and able to learn new stuff fairly quickly, but he doesn't really have any education past high-school. Being better trained at math and compsci would probably help him realize the value for his purchases a bit better.

<comment><USER14> >I can afford to get the new iPhone every year or two if I wanted

Maybe that's what the difference is. Being able to afford these things means you might not feel a similar need to posture that you can afford a certain lifestyle that you really can't. I'm guessing that at minimum wage most would struggle financially especially in a large city like NYC, so being able to pull the newest iPhone out of their pocket might be their way of assuring themselves and people around them that they are doing alright financially.

<comment><USER15> My wife has had more contact with poorer communities. And she believes it's partly to maintain the appearance of wealth and status. I suspect it's also a luxury within reach versus those which seem impossible: homeownership, choosing ones employer, world travel, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Isn't that the primary goal of most advertising? To create a dissatisfaction in people in such a way that they're driven to buy your product in an attempt to fill that void?

<comment><USER17> That question is addressed in the article:

"Their line is that advertising is trying to expose the public to new and exciting things to buy, and their task is to simply provide information, and in that way they raise human well-being. But the alternative argument, which goes back to Thorstein Veblen and others, is that exposing people to a lot of advertising raises their aspirations—and makes them feel that their own lives, achievements, belongings, and experiences are inadequate. This study supports the negative view, not the positive one."

<comment><USER18> I am currently working with marketing.

But I am happy I actually DO give information... My job consists of finding what people need (not want, but literally need), and tell them we can provide it.

Usually people that call the company where I work, thank us for having the product and the ads, sometimes they say they searched for days and then found our ads.

That said... we sell industrial parts, mostly for the maintenance of existing machines, so it is easy to not have any ethical trap... But it is not THAT profitable either... (just for comparison: I know a guy that works filming TV ads, and he said politicians pay for 30 second ads to his company, the same income my company has for several months summed...)

<comment><USER19> Thank you, this kind of advertisement is the one kind that is actually useful and needed. Search engines etc are a surprisingly bad way to find these kind of products (if you even realize it exists and can describe it).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> New animated ads and videos in the street are just horrible. Eyes follow movement automatically. You have to consciously avert you gaze constantly to not look into them. Two hours in the city and you start feeling tired from the cognitive load and the resistance towards impulse buy decreases a little.

* Walking on the street looking down is the only defense in the streets.

* Online only ad-blockers keep you sane.

<comment><USER21> The book 'The Space Merchants' (1952) from Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth describes this type world.

World is run by ad companies (FB, Google,...) who select political leaders. People have to be careful on the street not to be trapped by highly aggressive ads.

<comment><USER9> In fiction I also liked Richard K Morgan's take on holographic advertising in _Altered Carbon_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think this video points out Epicurus' opinions on advertisement [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L3dLWwmDDw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L3dLWwmDDw).

I don't have time to re-watch the video, but I remember the gist being that the _point_ of advertisements is to make you feel like you're missing out on something. If an ad can't make you feel that way, how will it sell you on its product? Someone who feels they have everything doesn't need to purchase anything to fill a need/want.

Really it's simple when you think about it. Company wants to sell you a product. You think you don't need anything else in your life because you're content. Company tells you your life could be better with their product; therefore, your life is missing something (said product). You are no longer content until you have said product.

It's nice to have evidence that supports an idea proposed centuries ago.

</comment><comment><USER23> I have a hard time relating to these findings.

Advertisement almost never works on me. And, the few times it does work on me, I'm actually quite glad and appreciative because I only buy products I really want or really need.

If I look at all my credit card, amazon and ebay purchases for the last several years, which i do often, i see it's just the things I need/want: gas, maintenance, groceries a few times going out to eat, etc. almost 0 merchandise, those things don't make me happier.

It's pretty rare that I see an appealing advertisement (to me). but it does happen.

ads don't really say much about the product. but, I do find them interesting because they say a huge amount about segments of our population: their hopes, their dreams, their perceptions, how they want to be seen, how much they care what others think, etc. it's a great case study for humanity.

<comment><USER24> "Advertising doesn't work on me" is a lie that nearly everyone tells themselves. Advertisers love this.

Ads rarely makes anyone rush out to go buy x out of the blue, but if someone is choosing between x product and y product, they're much more likely to pick x if has been advertised to them before. The substance of the ad is almost irrelevant; just because they've heard the name of x repeatedly before, they're much more likely to choose it.

<comment><USER23> Your might be right about most people. (advertisers love to tell this to their CEO but they've been wrong about this before - just look at the 20 million dollar case study with Ebay and their wasted ad spend on google ads).

But, it really doesn't work on me 99.9% of the time. I know because I review all my spending habits and I can clearly see 1/2 of the products I buy don't even advertise. Ever seen an ad for cucumbers or tomatoes or other real food? or rotten robbies gas station? i have no idea what label is on my clothes. etc.

And even on the rare occasions when it does work, the vast majority of the ads still are completely wasted. How many times have I seen an ad for metromile, when I'm already a happy customer of theirs. their targetting must be awful.

Sometimes I use the product because I'm forced to: like when sharebuilder got bought out by etrade. how many times will I see the completely useless etrade ads over my lifetime? i mean I'm already their customer (by default), so all their ad dollars are completely wasted.

<comment><USER25> I doubt the only products you buy are cucumbers, tomatoes and gas. You've chosen your phone, laptop, car, and various other branded items. Advertising very likely played a role in your decisions there.

How can you actually be sure that advertising doesn't work on you? Of course, you don't see an ad on TV for a new smart fridge and immediately jump out of your sofa, wallet in hand, to go buy it. But the key thing is that _nobody does_. That's not the point. The idea is that six months down the line when your fridge breaks irreparably and you're deciding between different brands, those ads will have an influence, and you won't realise it.

People who think advertising doesn't work on them _are godsends to advertisers_. This article puts it quite well, although I don't agree with its conclusions[0]:

"If you don't believe advertising works on you, you are going to be more likely to see good advertising as something else entirely and be more receptive to it and thusly more likely to take the action I want you to take."

There was a study a few months ago which found that people who think they are immune to advertising are more susceptible to it than average, but I can't find a link. It was one of the things that changed my opinion on this: I also used to think I was not susceptible to most advertising, but this is a dangerous mentality. You just don't think you're susceptible. I've come around to thinking Bill Hicks was completely right on this [1]

Also with the Metromile point, that's not bad targeting. Ads are often targeted at existing users of the ads product. The point is to keep brand loyalty and limit buyer's remorse.

[0] [https://medium.com/@dahanese/advertising-works-don-t- believe...](https://medium.com/@dahanese/advertising-works-don-t-believe-me- then-you-are-my-favorite-demographic-ebf6b1f2541a) [1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0)

<comment><USER23> I'm not your typical consumer. I buy the cheapest thing of each category unless there's an overwhelming reason not to. Computer: macbook pro (not because of ads but because I had to in order to develop for apple products), phone: Iphone - got it for free as a handme down from my wife. Very few of the groceries I buy have labels on them: it's all fresh fruit, veggies, things from the bulk section, almost nothing in the grocery store I've bought is advertised. I don't eat processed food or any kind of food that comes in a box or prepackaged bag. When my fridge breaks down I will buy the cheapest fridge I can find unless there's data that shows some fridges are more reliable than others. I buy maybe 2 pairs of pants per decade, and when I do buy clothes it's usually at used clothing store, and I don't pay any attention to what the label says other than the size and type of material.

Brand almost never ever comes into my decision making process. that's why its so hard for me to believe. I buy the cheaper one every time unless there's overwhelming reason not to. Frankly, I don't understand how this isn't the default behaviour for everyone.

The only areas where advertising works on me is on the following (when they actually give me information about products I actually want): occassionally on movies (but even then it's a small percentage ~ most of the time i get whatevers i find on fandango ~ i've even missed some movies i wanted to watch because the ads didn't reach me or I forgot), occassionally the restaurant coupons (half price), metromile, maybe banking (since that actually does require trust) .

Metromile is wasting their money by retargetting me. I'll leave the second I find another insurance that's cheaper - I have absolutely 0 brand loyalty for almost everything. If anything, they're just reminding me to check around for cheaper services that may pop up.

Utility bills -> no choice therefore ads don't matter. Housing -> found on zillow . Zillow itself, someone told me about it (not advertisement).

phone plan - i really had to hunt to find usmobile - 8$/month for 100 minutes, 100 messages. I can't even imagine how much money the telecom industry has squandered on me without any effect at all.

ISP - At&t hits me ads all the time, and everytime I'm just reminded about how evil they are and I check around to see if there's any other better broadband providers besides the one I'm using right now. so their ads are actually having the opposite of the desired effect, same with comcast.

The reason all these ads don't affect me is because they all appeal to Emotion and unverifiable information. And that's not how I generally make my decisions.

For example, when at&t says they have the best network, that's completely useless to me because I can't verify that it's true, or at least it's hard to do so.

Because most ads appeal based on emotion and I don't use emotion to make my buying decisions, it means they simply don't work.

<comment><USER26> Advertising readily exploits low price consumers like you, too.

First of all, they find ways to drop quality. At first they have the good deal for a limited time. This results in social proofing - good reviews and customer approvals - that theirs is the exceptional choice - quality at low price. Then they downgrade it. But because you were already buying it, you won't look the next time.

Second, they find ways to engineer deals that lead you down a path of more expensive dependencies. You go to the supermarket, and you get your veggies, and you see a sign saying "best enjoyed with" \- and there's a product. Maybe one you know and are familiar with, maybe one you don't. Regardless, you see the sign and the message and you start wondering, "am I enjoying my veggies less because I'm doing it wrong?"

The dairy industry has succeeded at this for decades, crafting all sorts of narratives about the necessity for milk, the pleasure of milk, how milk lets you have moments shared with friends. It doesn't have to have a brand name attached to reach you and reprogram you.

<comment><USER27> I don't think everyone is fooled by these types of maneuvers. Ye olde cable bundle model isn't going to fool a truly pragmatic person, even if it manifests itself in the grocery store. The drop in quality thing is something to explicitly watch for and expect, especially when the bait and switch you describe happens routinely on sites like Amazon these days.

Once you are aware of the many different ways an ad can manifest, they become uncanny. It becomes a game to spot them, and to think about _why_ this ad was bought to run at this particular time and place. I see that ad for california walnuts playing out in public, and it feels absolutely dystopian. I think they say "heart-heatlhy, california walnuts" about a half dozen times in the clip, like a mantra. The spell is broken if you ever read about the nut industry's water use, and connect the dots with the ever present threat of drought in california, and climate change worsening it all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> When this topic comes up I like to remind people of the brilliant and under appreciated movie Roger Dodger. The main character in it is an advertising executive and he flat out said that his job is to convince people their lives sucked. First you have to convince someone their life sucks and then it is quite easy to convince them that the latest product will improve their lives.

This is the way advertising works.

<comment><USER27> Mad men is great, too; it's positioned right at the bellwether moment of market research and psychology taking over whimsy narratives in advertisement in the 1960s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> That's the core of Buddha's teaching right there. Craving leads to suffering/dissatisfaction and advertisement is all about increasing craving for a product. The more things you crave, the more things you cannot get. And the things you cannot get give rise to negative feelings like jealousy, sadness and even frustration.

</comment><comment><USER30> This makes sense, given that a very large amount of (most?) advertising intentionally attempts to make you feel bad about something, in order to make you more likely to buy their "solution".

</comment><comment><USER31> Even if you yourself are not too directly affected by advertising, it can still affect your friends and family members. Collectively, it can create expectations and social pressure on you which makes your life less pleasant and more complicated than it needs to be.

</comment><comment><USER32> For a few weeks now, the billboards (including video billboards...) at train stations in the Netherlands are blank, due to a legal issue[1]. I take the train multiple times a week and I think it's very pleasant. Unfortunately it won't last.

[1] There was a bid held between two ad companies, a third company sued because they wanted to get included in the bid, too.

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm gonna take the contrarian viewpoint here. Full disclosure: I'm in advertising.

The researcher states that increasing "aspiration" (their term) leads to dissatisfaction and more unhappiness. Sure! But aspiration is also why we invented the wheel, harnessed fire, founded fancy schools like Harvard, try to be good parents, etc. I don't disagree that ambition and aspiration can make a person unhappy. But it's also what drives literally all human progress.

So unless you believe primitive man was living their best life and that everything that has happened since then is a regression (and certainly some people hold that view), I find it hard to swallow that aspirations are a bad thing.

Yes, there's a negative to them. But virtually every good thing people have ever done was because of their aspirations.

Therefore I don't agree with the notion that advertising is inherently bad because it raises people's expectations for themselves. I consider that a good thing even if it comes at the cost of a decrease in personal happiness.

HOWEVER (I can feel your hatred), there's a difference between motivating people to aspire to better things vs simply making them feel shitty about themselves so they'll buy your crap.

ex: When a fashion brand shows impossibly attractive people wearing their clothes, they're not showing us how to live better lives. They're simply making us feel shitty for not being models, and then hoping we'll make the conclusion that we'd look better if we bought those clothes. That doesn't make anyone's life better. That's just a shit sandwich all around.

ex: When a tech company shows us a bunch of people being really productive using their products, it can inspire us to want to be more productive. If their product truly can make us more productive (like the invention of the PC... no reasonable person would argue that PCs didn't make us more productive, right?), then that's great.

ex: Pharmaceutical drugs have been a fantastic boon for humanity. We rely on them constantly to extend our lives and improve our quality of life. Yet some (many?) drugs are nowhere near as beneficial as they are advertised (I'm looking at you, Fentanyl).

So I think the question is simply: does the product actually improve our lives in the way the advertising suggests? Or is it just a bait-and-switch?

Advertising isn't inherently bad, any more than aspirations are inherently bad. It boils down to what's being advertised and how honest the ads are about it.

<comment><USER30> > But aspiration is also why we invented the wheel, harnessed fire, founded > fancy schools like Harvard, try to be good parents, etc.

Excluding fancy schools (which I believe aren't exactly a good thing), none of those things were inspired by "aspiration" in the sense being used here. They were inspired by genuine need.

> I consider that a good thing even if it comes at the cost of a decrease in > personal happiness.

We could not possibly disagree more. I think it is straight-up immoral for anyone to intentionally make another's life worse in order to sell them stuff.

> Advertising isn't inherently bad, any more than aspirations are inherently > bad. It boils down to what's being advertised and how honest the ads are > about it.

We agree here. Advertising, in the form that advertisers tend cite to people who are critical of advertising (informing people about products) is not inherently bad.

However, the vast majority of advertising isn't of that form at all. It's of the form of manipulating people instead. That's the sort of advertising that is terrible.

<comment><USER33> > We could not possible disagree more. I think it is straight-up immoral for > anyone to intentionally make another's life worse in order to sell them > stuff.

I'm not sure we disagree, actually. I think you may be misunderstanding my meaning.

When I tell you about a product, a number of things are happening:

1\. If I'm successful in getting you to want the product, I've created (or emphasized an existing) dissatisfaction. That's not good. But:

2\. I've given you the knowledge of a solution to your problem. Depending on the problem at hand, the solution might improve your health, extend your life, help you earn more money, be a better parent, donate to a charity, etc.

So I think if you want to stand in judgment of the morality of advertising, it has to be done on a case by case basis, and you have to weigh all the pros and cons.

I'll give you an example of a type of advertising that will clearly decrease your happiness but is still a net positive. (Impossible, right?)

Take a look at any ad for any charity. Those ads make your life worse by telling you how miserable things are for some group of people or animals or some other cause. And even if you "buy" what the ads are selling (i.e. you give them money), you're still going to feel like garbage about their cause. And yet, I'm willing to bet you wouldn't consider those ads to be evil, would you?

It's an extreme example, but it illustrates my point: you have to consider more than just happiness.

Here's a more extreme example: If all I cared about was making people happy, I'd sell heroin. Heroin feels awesome. Heroin makes people happy. It also destroys their lives in the process. Some addicts manage to be happy all the way to their death bed.

So happiness is not the end-all-be-all measurement of what is good and what is bad. It's definitely A measurement. I'm not discounting it. I'm just saying there are other things to consider as well, and I don't personally consider it the #1 most important measurement. (It's probably in my top 5.)

<comment><USER30> > I've given you the knowledge of a solution to your problem.

But you've given a "solution" (that involves separating me from my money) to a problem that you created in the first place. I don't see how that's a good thing.

> And yet, I'm willing to bet you wouldn't consider those ads to be evil, > would you?

"Evil" isn't the word I'd use. "Immoral" is. If a charitable organization is using ads that are intentionally trying to make me feel bad (as opposed to merely informing me), then those ads don't suddenly become acceptable just because it's a charitable organization. The ends don't justify the means. Interestingly enough, although I donate to charitable organization reasonably heavily, I long ago decided not to donate to ones that engage in such advertising, for precisely this reason.

> If all I cared about was making people happy, I'd sell heroin.

No, you wouldn't, because doing so will make people unhappy, not happy. "Feeling good" is a very different thing than happiness, particularly if you're only looking at the near term.

<comment><USER33> > But you've given a "solution" (that involves separating me from my money) to > a problem that you created in the first place.

When did I create a problem? Yes, some advertising invents nonexistent problems and I thought I was clear that this shit is evil. That's a different thing from saying "that headache you have sucks, doesn't it? here's some tylenol"

> No, you wouldn't, because doing so will make people unhappy, not happy.

Way to miss the point, dude.

<comment><USER27> Imagine being overweight and being told by an absolute stranger, "gee, you look bad. come join my gym, you'd look like this ripped guy." Prick, right?

People have dissatisfactions, but only advertisements have the audacity to point them out as a complete stranger. Even if a loved one did that, you might recoil. when people are unhappy about something, they will share it with someone they trust if they want to talk about it. Advertisements get a free pass to nose into your life and be your mother? Please.

<comment><USER33> I actually agree. Which is why my first comment on this thread said this:

> HOWEVER (I can feel your hatred), there's a difference between motivating > people to aspire to better things vs simply making them feel shitty about > themselves so they'll buy your crap.

There are lots of different ways to motivate people. Lying is one of them. Making them feel bad about themselves works too. I don't support either of those approaches.

So to use your example about the gym, I strongly dislike most fitness/health advertising for the very reasons you state. If I were to run ads for that industry, I'd focus on the effort of regular everyday people. I wouldn't show impossibly perfect (and mostly photoshopped) people. I'd show people from across the whole spectrum pushing themselves, waking up early to hit the gym. I'd focus on health, not "beauty". On working out so you can have more energy, fewer health complications, greater strength, etc. I wouldn't run ads that tell you "you should work out because it's the only way you could ever look like this model over here".

But that's just me. I don't know if my approach would work, because I haven't had the opportunity to try it yet. (Not a lot of fitness brands looking for an ad agency in Northern Ontario.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> One pretty tangential anecdote.

My university enforced a no-laptop-no-internet rule (back in the 2011, 2G internet era in India) for our Freshman year.

It was the single best year of my life.

Me, a person who had grown up on and shaped by the internet, quickly realized how little of it mattered to my happiness after a few days away from it.

It made me realize how subjective things like happiness and satisfaction are. Especially given that I had already been exposed to the opulence of things on offer growing up on the internet. But, the second it stopped being shoved in my face incessantly, my priorities realigned and I started finding happiness and satisfaction in other, more local things.

Coming full circle, the second we entered our sophomore year we got high speed internet and laptops. People just as quickly reverted to their old selves, all while lamenting how they miss how things were in the freshmen year.

</comment><comment><USER35> Write up of methodology & results: [https://www.andrewoswald.com/docs/AdvertisingMicheletal2019E...](https://www.andrewoswald.com/docs/AdvertisingMicheletal2019EasterlinVolume.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER36> that's how you know that the advertising is working

<comment><USER37> Exactly. This is classic POSIWID: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does)

People mainly buy things to solve problems, to end negative feelings. So if you want people to buy things, the obvious solution is to create negative feelings that can be ended by spending money on your product.

The most obvious example is of course addictive products. Just when we were finally weaning society of nicotine, Juul has been very successful in creating a new generation of addicts.

But I think they dynamic is true more broadly. Feeling low in social status? Buy this expensive car, these expensive clothes, this expensive watch! And if you _aren 't_ feeling like that, let's show you enough fancy people with fancy things until you do feel bad. Social status isn't your weakness? Well we have plenty of creative teams who will find something we can make you feel bad about.

And for those who are skeptical, I encourage you to read about Edward Bernays, the "father of public relations", who took his inspiration from war propaganda and applied it to manipulating consumer behavior: [http://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the- american-...](http://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american- mind-edward-bernays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-44393)

<comment><USER33> Public relations != advertising.

Ed Bernays != spokesperson for all PR professionals.

There are shady people in every industry.

<comment><USER38> > Public relations != advertising.

Not a distinction I care to make. The problems with both are fundamentally the same.

> Ed Bernays != spokesperson for all PR professionals.

Okay, but all PR professionals and advertisers are trying to manipulate people. That is literally the job. Everyone else in the industry has the same goals--Bernays may have been willing to do more unscrupulous things to achieve those goals, but the goals are fundamentally unscrupulous.

> There are shady people in every industry.

But some industries, the purpose of the industry itself is shady. Advertising and PR are such industries.

<comment><USER33> Question for you then: Are you or are you not trying to manipulate me to share your point of view?

If all advertising is manipulation, then so are all conversations. Every debate, every argument, every statement of fact or opinion.

I don't consider it manipulation if it's honest. If I run an ad that says "These burgers cost only $1.25" and they really do cost $1.25, that's hardly manipulation.

If, on the other hand, I say "This burger cost only $1.25" but I was referring only to the patty, and not the bun and toppings and whatever else you see pictured, then that's manipulation (bordering on out-right lying).

Bernays said a lot of things that simply weren't true because he didn't care about the truth. And yeah, a lot of PR and advertising people would share his immoral stance on things. But most of the people I know in the industry aren't like that. We strive to create honest work that is entertaining enough to catch your attention so we can tell you something true about the product.

There's an idea out there that advertising is about selling you things regardless of whether you'd benefit from it or not. In my books, this is a stupid way to spend your advertising dollars. Instead, you should do the hard work of figuring out who, if anyone, would benefit from the product, and then create a campaign to reach them.

Obviously, some advertisers have no such ethical dilemma. Not to point fingers, but there are plenty of products that only do damage to people's lives. I'd like to think the clients I currently work with do not fall into this category, but that hasn't always been the case and feel free to judge me for that.

<comment><USER38> > Question for you then: Are you or are you not trying to manipulate me to > share your point of view?

You go on after this question to explain what manipulation is, so it seems like you understand the concept, and can probably figure out how it doesn't apply to this conversation.

> There's an idea out there that advertising is about selling you things > regardless of whether you'd benefit from it or not. In my books, this is a > stupid way to spend your advertising dollars. Instead, you should do the > hard work of figuring out who, if anyone, would benefit from the product, > and then create a campaign to reach them.

If your actual goal is to help people find things they would benefit from, then what's the best way to do that? Some ideas:

1\. Review sites that try to be unbiased and share expert opinions on possible solutions to your problem. Obviously there are pitfalls here: the best solutions are ones where the site receives money from consumers, not companies with products to sell.

2\. Word of mouth recommendations from friends and family, who intimately know your actual needs and genuinely want you to be successful.

3\. People often know their own needs and go out to find solutions to their own needs, soliciting advice from 1 and 2, but also by asking experts (doctors, mechanics, etc.) who they pay to give them good advice.

4\. A minimalist movement that views the entire idea of purchasing something with skepticism. I'm not against paying for products, but I do think it's important to see that paying for products is a tradeoff. Paying for a solution isn't always the best way to solve a problem, and in fact isn't always better than the problem itself.

Literally no part of a reasonable solution for helping people involves showing them only your product (not your competitors'), and/or only the positive aspects of your product. And that's the _absolute best case_ for advertising.

And to be clear, that's not honest, it's lying by omission. If you're any good at your job, you know who your competitors are, and you know their strengths, but you're not sharing that information with your target audience. That's information that's relevant to the wants/needs of your target audience, but you're withholding that information, because it benefits you/your clients. The idea that this is you trying to go out and help people find and choose the best products for their needs is very naive.

Contrary to your belief, advertising _actively prevents_ people from finding products that best solve their problems. Worse products beat out better products if they have better advertising, and this is the norm, not the exception, because every dollar spent on advertising is a dollar not spent on producing the best product possible. In theory, a company that makes profit from advertising can reinvest that profit into R+D, but in practice the incentives don't lead in that direction. A company that makes a profit by advertising has no reason to take a risk by changing strategy.

<comment><USER33> First up: I just wanna say it wasn't my goal to be the defender of the ad industry. I started this comment thread to defend the idea of aspirations as a good thing.

That being said:

> The idea that this is you trying to go out and help people find and choose > the best products for their needs is very naive.

You're right, that would be naive. It's not what I said though.

re: Review sites, word of mouth, contacting experts: That's all great. But to the business owner who's wondering how they're going to make payroll 3 months from now, that's not exactly helpful. Your recommendation to them is to just sit back and hope people stumble onto what they're selling?

> You go on after this question to explain what manipulation is, so it seems > like you understand the concept, and can probably figure out how it doesn't > apply to this conversation.

You haven't made any attempt to present the other side of the argument either. You say I'm dishonest for presenting my clients in the best possible light, yet you also pick and choose what to present in defence of your position. I'm fine with that, but it seems to me that if you held yourself to the same standard, you'd make an effort to consider the position of all the people involved in advertising.

Maybe the world really would be better if it were free of advertising. I'm not sure. I don't think such a world has existed in thousands of years, but it'd be interesting to see. In the meantime, we live in a world where advertising does exist, and therefor it's foolish not to participate in it, because doing so would give your competitors an unfair advantage.

<comment><USER38> > First up: I just wanna say it wasn't my goal to be the defender of the ad > industry. I started this comment thread to defend the idea of aspirations as > a good thing.

Okay, but I wasn't really attacking aspirations, either. I've criticized "conquering desire" before on HN as leading to useless monasticism.

> re: Review sites, word of mouth, contacting experts: That's all great. But > to the business owner who's wondering how they're going to make payroll 3 > months from now, that's not exactly helpful. Your recommendation to them is > to just sit back and hope people stumble onto what they're selling?

No, I don't have a recommendation for them. I get it, business owners are somewhat forced to advertise, because their competitors are advertising. I'm saying that we as a society should not be pretending advertising is some positive thing, we should be removing advertising from our content, our public spaces, etc.

Ultimately, this isn't necessarily bad for businesses. If advertising didn't exist and people found out about products by other means, businesses could compete on just producing the best products.

> You haven't made any attempt to present the other side of the argument > either. You say I'm dishonest for presenting my clients in the best possible > light, yet you also pick and choose what to present in defence of your > position. I'm fine with that, but it seems to me that if you held yourself > to the same standard, you'd make an effort to consider the position of all > the people involved in advertising.

1\. Presenting all the opinions is not the same as presenting all the facts. In fact, presenting all opinions is _counterproductive_ to providing a well- rounded summary of the facts: if you present flat earthers on the same level as cosmologists, you're dignifying non-truth as if it were truth. I'm not obligated to state opinions like "Advertisers are just trying to help you find what you want!" because that's just a lie, and stating it alongside the truth would make them seem like equal ideas. Leaving out incorrect opinions is not the same as leaving out facts.

2\. Even if you could make it stick that I'm a hypocrite, so what? Just because someone is a hypocrite doesn't mean they're wrong. That's just an ad hominem attack on me. Let's stick to debating the topic, not my character.

> In the meantime, we live in a world where advertising does exist, and > therefor it's foolish not to participate in it, because doing so would give > your competitors an unfair advantage.

Sure--if you're a business owner it's foolish to play by the rules when nobody else is. But as humans and members of society, not as business owners, we can strive to create a world without advertising.

<comment><USER33> Don't have much to say to most of this. Agree with some of it.

> Let's stick to debating the topic, not my character.

Read this thread and tell me the character of my industry in general and of myself specifically have not been the subject of debate. Attack my character and I consider it perfectly fair to attack yours. If the worst thing I've said about your character is that you're being hypocritical (and I think it is), I'd say you've taken fewer lumps than I have.

<comment><USER38> Okay, sure. If you want to say I'm a hypocrite, fine. It's not a point I care to defend myself from.

The fact still remains that the advertising industry is a blight on society.

<comment><USER33> I believe you've confused "fact" with "opinion", unless you're intentionally trying to deceive anyone reading this.

<comment><USER37> Sorry, it's a fact. At the very best, the great bulk of it is unnecessary: companies advertise because their competitors advertise. If we just stopped, we'd have hundreds of billions to spend on something actually useful. And that's before we get to the harm caused. E.g., the harm documented in the study. Or the millions of people killed due to tobacco advertising.

<comment><USER33> There's an awful lot of things I'd consider a "blight on society" but I never mistake my opinion as fact.

When's the last time you saw an ad for tobacco? Is that still a thing in the states? We don't have that in Canada. (Even the packaging is legally required to be generic up here, and they have to be hidden behind a locked door.)

There are ads for vaping products, though. I suspect they'll be outlawed soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> > If I see this $10,000 watch and then look at my watch, which I probably paid > about $150 for, I might think, "Maybe there's something wrong with me."

That entire paragraph made me really sad and the quote is probably the saddest part. People actually think like this, and it's unclear what, if anything, can be done to help.

</comment><comment><USER40> Having read the article, it seems they are concluding a causality that isn't necessarily there.

The whole study is based on: there's a correlation between advertising spend per capita and life satisfaction between countries in Europe.

Now that COULD mean advertising is making people unhappy.

Or it could mean that people who are less satisfied tend to buy more crap and when people buy more crap they get more advertising. It's not as if advertisers are stupid.

The researcher in the article even admits to this being a one off with no other studies backing his claim. Now what's more likely, he discovered something no one else has, or he misinterpreted the data?

<comment><USER3> I wish yours wasn't the only comment talking about this. It saddens me to see articles like this, where causation is imposed on correlation. Everyone "knows" correlation doesn't imply causation, but they only seem to know it in the sense of a student reciting it. They don't apply that knowledge critically.

A single study of two things as complicated as advertising measurement and happiness/satisfaction, and the intuitively compelling conclusion is immediately embraced as the truth because it's "obvious."

Edit: Again with the downvotes...come on HN. I'm not defending advertising, I'm criticizing the reporting on a study in a world which has a rampant replication crisis.

<comment><USER40> The funny thing is, the most up voted comments on this topic don't even seem to be about the FA. They are mostly just 'generic advertising is bad comment/anecdote related to the title'.

Another idea I had after reading the article is that advertising is more pervasive in big cities. From what I can recall, big city inhabitants tend to have a lower life satisfaction rating than smaller town dwellers. So countries with more urban dwellers might normally have more advertising and less life satisfaction... because big cities, not necessarily advertising. Also richer nations tend to be less happy, and by being richer have more advertising. There's a lot of ways to interpret the data.

It's funny to see the group-think dynamic on display needed to make non relevant comments go up and comments related to the article be down-voted (which aren't even stating anything specific... you and I never even said 'it's this' just questioning 'maybe not that')

Another super interesting thing that I glean from the down-votes is the bottom down view only when convenient.

If you post on HN that tech companies are evil and conspiring against our privacy, people will say (IMO mostly rightly BTW) that it's mostly bottom up, with consumers CHOOSING bad options. But as soon as advertising comes in the mix, now the world is top down, with evil marketeers manipulating the masses anyway they want.

To all the down-voters: your boos mean nothing, I've seen what makes you cheer!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The true irony of having to close an ad before being able to read this article

</comment><comment><USER42> the goal of advertising is to make you want something you don't have. QED

<comment><USER43> Using advertising to create demand is only a tiny part of the advertising market, and arguably the worst way to spend your ad budget.

Most advertising is to maintain your market share in already established and very competitive markets.

E.g., Coca-Cola plastering their logo everywhere to prevent Pepsi from doing the same. It's certainly not to convince those who don't drink Coke to start doing so.

<comment><USER38> It seems like as a society if we agreed not to have advertising, we would save both companies (b|m)illions of dollars.

This isn't an argument for advertising, it's an argument that advertising is an infectious disease: once one company in an industry starts advertising, the others have to advertise to compete. And that hurts consumers because every dollar spent on advertising is a dollar that comes out of the pockets of consumers and is not spent on improving the product.

<comment><USER44> It is a symptom/emergent result of competition really and differentiating themselves. Not having competition would obviously lead to more stagnation which would lead to things being worse for consumers.

Really advertising is sort of an analog to reproductive signaling burdens like males deliberately showing fitness by making themselves obvious to predators.

<comment><USER38> > It is a symptom/emergent result of competition really and differentiating > themselves. Not having competition would obviously lead to more stagnation > which would lead to things being worse for consumers.

Right, but we don't have to accept that it has to be this way. If we're committing to the idea that competition is there to benefit consumers, we should cut out the parts of competition that clearly _aren 't_ beneficial to consumers.

There would still be competition if people got information about products from independent reviewers, it would just be competition based on the qualities of the products, rather than the advertising.

<comment><USER43> > ...if people got information about products from independent reviewers

No such thing; in markets where traditional advertising never caught hold, the 'independent' reviewers are anything but. In a way that is much worse when bias and vested interest is clearly labeled.

<comment><USER38> Consumer Reports, Labdoor, etc. work just fine.

You can look at where the money for these companies comes from, and see who they're serving.

Also, if you think that advertising bias and vested interest is clearly labeled, you may be seeing a lot of advertising that you don't realize is advertising.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> This doesn't feel like a very scientific approach. Looking at national satisfaction and then national advertising spend...seems like there would be huge scope for bias regardless of how many controls you put in. In particular, something like individual wellbeing is just that...individual. Really very tricky (and as always you see the researcher give out ludicrously unjustified advice to individuals...if you go to a psychologist and tell them you are unhappy, they don't ask how many adverts you saw recently).

</comment><comment><USER46> Since they're smart, I'll assume that they somehow controlled for the cause of the lower life satisfaction not being the ads but exposure to the types of media which display ads. ?

</comment><comment><USER47> Reading this article made me think of how different you tn felt to use YouTube without ads. So much so that I'd consider paying a bit more to be free of search ads. And Twitter Ads.

</comment><comment><USER48> Could this help paint advertising as a public health problem?

</comment><comment><USER49> It's ironic that an article about advertising having an inverse correlation with life satisfaction thrusts a popup ad when the page is opened! _sigh_ It reminded me of the New York Times article on tracking on the web while NYT itself was using several trackers.

</comment><comment><USER50> Title is misleading - the inverse correlation is between advertising _spending_ and life satisfaction.

This could be indicative of ads causing unhappiness, but it could also be indicative of increased social media use, which also causes unhappiness.

</comment><comment><USER51> Removing ads from my life is a personal crusade. Psychologically manipulative garbage.

</comment><comment><USER52> I find it just a bit funny that when I clicked on the link to an article titled, "advertising makes us unhappy," the first thing that happened is that an ad popped up to cover the whole page.

</comment><comment><USER53> The irony of seeing a popup ad on HBR immediately when clicking on this link.

</comment><comment><USER54> So what you're saying is that I should stop visiting levels.fyi ...?

</comment><comment><USER55> The first thing I see when I click the link: ADVERTISEMENT pop up.

</comment><comment><USER56> Advertising is so pervasive in our lives that it's become like water for fish - it is hard to imagine a world without ads.

Even bigger problem with advertisement - it is (indirectly) driving climate change.

Most likely we'd be happier and safer without ads. Sigh.

</comment><comment><USER57> Do we really need research to confirm this?

</comment><comment><USER58> Adblockers make you happy!

</comment><comment><USER59> We should always be careful of drawing big conclusions based on observational studies...

</comment><comment><USER3> I can see a few compelling arguments for it, but personally I'd be very wary of concluding causation from this relationship. The two things are very complicated and have many confounding variables involved. I see it just as likely that the correlation is spurious, and people exposed to advertising have lower life satisfaction for a variety of complex reasons incidental to the ads themselves.

Capitalism affords many opportunities for someone to be unhappy and unsatisfied; advertising may cause this or simply exacerbate what is already there.

I'm disappointed with the way HBR reported this. The researchers are explicitly quoted as saying they found a "negative connection", which, yes, is an inverse correlation. No matter how intuitively compelling, you can't just extrapolate that to a conclusion of causation as the author of this article proceeded to do right in the introduction.

Edit: Why is this being downvoted? Do you disagree with my point that we can't extrapolate causation from correlation, or do find my comment to be off topic?

<comment><USER38> Do you have an alternative hypothesis for why advertising would be inversely correlated with satisfaction?

If not, it seems like we should operate on our best hypothesis with evidence for it, not speculate about unknown unknowns.

You did at one point say that advertising might not be causing the lower satisfaction, it might just be exacerbating other problems that cause lower satisfaction. While that possibility certainly warrants investigation to see what those other problems are, it doesn't have any implications for how we treat advertising: either way we should be seeking to decrease its influence on our lives.

<comment><USER3> _> If not, it seems like we should operate on our best hypothesis with evidence for it, not speculate about unknown unknowns._

Nope! We shouldn't. Speculation is precisely what we should do! That's what a critical review of research involves. We should take this as excellent motivation for _further research._ It could be true, but we haven't done nearly enough work to conclude as much. I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying it's uncertain, and it's strictly unscientific to proceed by assuming something uncertain is the truth just because it's _intuitively_ compelling. Intuitively compelling narratives are very dangerous in science, because they make you believe you have a shortcut to the truth and they're vindicated right up until they aren't. It's not a good habit.

Happiness is incredibly complicated. Contradicting evidence and results abound across studies of life satisfaction. Measuring the impact and success of _advertising_ itself is highly complex; the researchers have shown this correlation under their current methodology. What are we to conclude if someone uses a different methodology to study the same topic, equally as valid, and comes away with a different conclusion? That's very possible, and we can't dismiss it. The researchers themselves hedge their claims and don't come out and say they've found causation.

I don't really have a dog in the race with advertising. But I really despise this kind of reporting by HBR, because the result is threads like this one where people walk away with unproven "truths" that become part of the popular zeitgeist because they just seem to vindicate obvious beliefs. Today it's advertising, tomorrow it'll be something else. Given the replication crisis we're undergoing, we shouldn't take anything away from studies like this except that further research is required.

<comment><USER38> > Nope! We shouldn't. Speculation is precisely what we should do! That's what > a critical review of research involves. We should take this as excellent > motivation for further research. It could be true, but we haven't done > nearly enough work to conclude as much.

Nobody is proposing we stop researching, so let's not dignify _that_ idea by discussing it further.

I'm proposing that _as we continue researching_ , we proceed to take action with the best information we currently have.

> I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying it's uncertain, and it's strictly > unscientific to proceed by assuming something uncertain is the truth...

It's not unscientific because of the nature of the truth, it's unscientific because science never tells you how to proceed, ever. It only tells you an approximation of the truth so you can make an educated decision on how you want to proceed. There is no _should_ in science.

> ...just because it's intuitively compelling. Intuitively compelling > narratives are very dangerous in science, because they make you believe you > have a shortcut to the truth and they're vindicated right up until they > aren't. It's not a good habit.

I'm not confused about these facts--you don't need to explain them. This is irrelevant, because this isn't why I want to take action on this study.

> Happiness is incredibly complicated. Contradicting evidence and results > abound across studies of life satisfaction. Measuring the impact and success > of advertising itself is highly complex; the researchers have shown this > correlation under their current methodology.

> What are we to conclude if someone uses a different methodology to study the > same topic, equally as valid, and comes away with a different conclusion?

If that happens, we change our minds.

What are we to conclude if someone uses a different methodology to study the same topic, equally as valid, and comes away with the same conclusion? Would you just call for more evidence?

This isn't the first study on related subjects, and so far I haven't found any that would lead me to a different conclusion.

> That's very possible, and we can't dismiss it. The researchers themselves > hedge their claims and don't come out and say they've found causation.

It's also possible that the conclusions are true, and that by waiting to take action we let people suffer from the effects of advertising longer than necessary.

If we wait to take action until we're completely sure of the facts, we'll never take action, because evidence is almost _never_ 100% conclusive.

The only information I have on this subject indicates that advertising is harmful. You are correct that this information is not 100% conclusive. However, just because we don't know something 100% conclusively, doesn't mean we should not take action on it--the vast majority of decisions in life are made with incomplete information.

We make decisions based on two things: 1. The best information we have, and 2. Our goals.

So there's basically two possibilities here: either you have some information I don't (in which case, please share that information with the class) or you have different goals (i.e. you would be pro-advertising even if it were proven that it makes people less happy).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> non-entity I remember a while back seeing an ad for smart toilets. Somewhat intrigued, I googled for them and found that a good many of them cost several grand.

I remember thinking "who the hell are they advertising to?" No average person is going to spend that money on a smart toilet, and I'm sure even the upper middle class has better purchases to make in that price range.

Also I've noticed everything in commercials is so idyllic. A nice house in a beautiful setting, with a functional family. People just buying each other cars as Christmas gifts. It's kinda distressing to realize that most people, including myself will never have this (in part, because I dont think it exists)

<comment><USER60> That stuff exists, it just costs a lot of money. Well, except for a functional family, money can't buy that. Want a house that looks clean and perfectly staged all the time? Hire a full-time cleaner to come every day and sweep, pick up, do the dishes, etc.

The lie in those commercials is that their target audience can never afford something like that. So in a sense, you're right, they're showing "you" what you can never have.

<comment><USER61> You can also keep your house clean and perfectly staged all the time by cleaning it yourself. It's not impossible, or even difficult.

<comment><USER38> Yes, but what are you giving up to do that?

<comment><USER61> Video games and Netflix, for most people. I really don't think the trade-off between Netflix time and house cleanliness is a false perception synthesized by advertisers.

<comment><USER62> Netflix and videogsmes are very passive activities, and time cleaning your house presumably isn't fungible with them, from a mental energy perspective. I'm not in the habit of watching TV, but my sister is a good example: over the course of her medical education and early career, her Netflix addiction has tracked pretty directly with how mentally exhausting her workload is. If she was at full-enough capacity during Netflix time to be cleaning house, she'd be spending it on one of her hobbies, or reading.

<comment><USER61> Studies on ego depletion have failed to replicate, which means that the idea of a limited supply of mental energy may not be true.

<comment><USER38> Studies on ego depletion have nothing to do with the post you are responding to.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What is the name of this operator: "-->"? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1642028/what-is-the-name-of-this-operator

<comment><USER2> From the comments: "This question is becoming quite the rep factory." That pretty much sums it up!</comment>


Dell: No, our laptops don't smell like cat urine - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/30/dell-laptops-dont-smell-like-urine/?ncid=rss_truncated <comment><USER2> No, they aren't. They're denying that the smell _is_ cat urine (or any other kind of urine). They're admitting that the smell is there.

Bad headline even for Engadget.

</comment><comment><USER3> I like how they think the problem is that it smells like _cat piss_.

The problem is that it _smells_ like cat piss.</comment>


Show HN: JavaScript regexp eBook with hundreds of examples and exercises - <AUTHOR> Hello.
I updated my ebook on JavaScript regular expressions [1] today - updates include corrections, additional content, exercises, solutions, etc
All my ebooks [2] are currently free to help with quarantine reading. These include GNU grep & ripgrep, GNU sed, GNU awk and three books on regular expressions - Python, Ruby, JavaScript
I'd appreciate your feedback and hope the books are useful. Happy learning :)
[1] https://github.com/learnbyexample/learn_js_regexp
[2] https://learnbyexample.github.io/books/ <comment><USER2> Thank you for sharing your work! It looks quite wide-ranging and in depth.

For others, clickable links:

[https://github.com/learnbyexample/learn_js_regexp](https://github.com/learnbyexample/learn_js_regexp)

[https://learnbyexample.github.io/books/](https://learnbyexample.github.io/books/)

\---

I love that you provide the books in a single-file Markdown format.

JavaScript Regular Expressions - [https://github.com/learnbyexample/learn_js_regexp/blob/maste...](https://github.com/learnbyexample/learn_js_regexp/blob/master/js_regexp.md)

Python Regular Expressions - [https://github.com/learnbyexample/py_regular_expressions/blo...](https://github.com/learnbyexample/py_regular_expressions/blob/master/py_regex.md)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for posting clickable links and feedback about the markdown sources.

I use pandoc to convert markdown to pdf/epub and my initial learning with pandoc [1] resulted in single file usage. So, I kept it like that. I'm planning to create a separate chapter-wise branch so that I can publish a nicer web version with tools like mdBook [2]. This will require a bit of scripting to handle references across chapters.

[1] [https://learnbyexample.github.io/tutorial/ebook- generation/c...](https://learnbyexample.github.io/tutorial/ebook- generation/customizing-pandoc/)

[2] [https://github.com/rust-lang/mdBook](https://github.com/rust-lang/mdBook)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> While on the subject of RegEx, I'll just recommend this website. It's great for practicing RegEx and interactively seeing what changes to your expression are doing and why:

[https://regex101.com/](https://regex101.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, that website is a good way to interactively solve/learn. The site also includes quiz, cheatsheets, etc.

I mention it in an interlude chapter, along with regexr[1], regulex [2], debuggex[3] and regexcrossword [4]

[1] [https://regexr.com/](https://regexr.com/)

[2] [https://jex.im/regulex/](https://jex.im/regulex/)

[3] [https://www.debuggex.com/](https://www.debuggex.com/)

[4] [https://regexcrossword.com/](https://regexcrossword.com/)</comment></comment>


Can We Pull Back from the Brink? - <AUTHOR> https://samharris.org/can-pull-back-brink/ <comment><USER2> [https://phys.org/news/2020-07-white-people-black- police.html](https://phys.org/news/2020-07-white-people-black-police.html) debunks Harris and Trump's claim</comment>


Has Physics Lost Its Way? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/books/review/dream-universe-david-lindley.html <comment><USER2> I think this book [1] makes a similar argument, but in more concise and direct terms. The gist of the argument is theoretical physicists have wasted too much time and effort trying to come up with elegant math and grand theories that sound plausible but can't be tested or, when they can, fail the test. And rather than acknowledging that, the field as a whole keeps digging in without making much progress.

[1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36341728-lost-in- math](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36341728-lost-in-math)

<comment><USER3> I wonder if it is the same thing that stalled AI research for decades? After the initial burst of hacks that seemed really impressive (ELIZA for example), the field focused on finding formal mathematical solutions to the problems and effectively stalled for 30+ years. It's only in the past few years with a shift to doing statistical things on large sets of data--something that feels a lot more like the hacky original efforts--that it feels like we're making any progress again.

This is from a outsider's point of view so it may be completely wrong. But I did try to take an AI course in the late 90s and it was so far divorced from computer hardware that I joked it should have been in the math department.

<comment><USER4> Neural nets had been in development since the 80s. The hardware became powerful enough to take advantage of the research quite recently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reading this review, I can't tell what Lindley hoped to contribute with this book or why Al-Khalili found it noteworthy enough for a NYTimes book review (which itself is so brief that it doesn't seem to say much beyond something like "despite the claim to the contrary, Physics is more than math, and maybe in the future we'll be able to test some of the untested ideas that came from mathematical beauty.")

What am I missing here?

</comment><comment><USER6> Personally, I think that the criticism of physics being driven too much by mathematics is exactly wrong. The most sensible approach to quantum gravity yet came out of Wheeler's group. It's a really obvious approach: I came up with the basic idea independently, then looked up _Gravitation_ to see if it was technically possible, and learnt that the authors thought of that 50 years before I did.

But it was abandoned, because no one could do the maths.

So I think we're waiting for another Laplace and Euler, to solve the Wheeler- de Witt equation.

</comment><comment><USER7> My experience in school was the best professors were in the physics department. I learned a lot in those classes. I never asked, "Is this useful?" Of course, it has been very useful, especially in understanding engineering problems.

The physics professors worked hard at teaching their classes, and they all supported graduate students. I think that is sufficient. I don't care if some of their research gives mathematical results that are not testable. That is what we call research. I will back those professors every time.

That is my opinion.

<comment><USER8> Are you saying that those professors who i dont doubt are good and supportive, beside teaching generate some junk because academia requires them? Maybe something is broken

<comment><USER7> No, I do not believe those physics professors would publish any "junk". I expect some research reaches a dead end. However, those professors seemed much too driven by the pursuit of knowledge to waste their time on useless research.

Though the math is beyond me, theoretical physics is pretty much all math. The math being developed may or may not be useful eventually, but it adds to the knowledge base. I think "is this testable?" is the wrong wrong question to ask.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> All the hang-wringing about elegant mathematics misses the point. An elegant theory is one that captures a lot of complexity with a minimal description. That some small number of assumptions goes on to describe a multitude of phenomena is the mark of a good theory. Given the choice between an elegant theory and an inelegant one that describes the same data, the elegant one is more likely to be true.

If there are problems with modern physics, its not that we're spending time looking for elegant theories.

</comment><comment><USER10> Totally agree that in general the endless naval gazing in physics (multi-verse / string theory etc) seems like a colossal waste of time.

</comment><comment><USER11> Another good interview on this topic:

[https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross- check/physicist-g...](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross- check/physicist-george-ellis-knocks-physicists-for-knocking-philosophy- falsification-free-will/)

</comment><comment><USER12> It seems unfair to criticize some physicists for the fact that they haven't subjected their theories to experiment, when we know that testing certain theories would require access to vast levels of energy that the human race doesn't yet have at its disposal (and may never have).

<comment><USER13> No but I think it's fair to criticize any physicist who establishes a theory to be beyond testability and continues work on it, or who works on another physicists theory that is established to be beyond testability.

Especially if they are using public money, because public monies need to be accountable.

<comment><USER14> >it's fair to criticize any physicist who establishes a theory to be beyond testability and continues work on it

Would the same apply to people who further explore questions like P = NP and what happens if it is true or false or what happens if the Riemann hypothesis is true? Sometimes digging more into something that doesn't seem testable results in a finding that is testable or into knowledge that helps advance a related field.

I think the deeper question is, how do we make sure that public money is spent in a justifiable fashion. And when it comes to science that is a hard question to answer, especially if one considers that science works a bit differently than the way the average voter thinks about things when it comes to notion such as proven or disproven.

<comment><USER15> It might apply if P=NP or the Riemann hypothesis were remotely the same thing. An open mathematical conjecture has uncertainty about whether effort into cracking it will produce fruit. That's entirely different from a physical theory where it certainly cannot be tested.

<comment><USER16> Any physical theory that cannot be tested is a mathematical theory that can produce results useful in other places.

In general all of theoretical physics is mathematics that takes inspiration from experiments, and takes shortcuts when proving theorems:).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Isn't this what Eric Weinstein is on about in his podcast as series The Portal?

</comment><comment><USER18> Academia lost its way, not Physics.

<comment><USER19> Many words in the English language have more than one meaning. One of the common meanings of the term "physics" is the academic physics community. Did you really not know that?

<comment><USER20> Actually, the snarky poster was correct.

US Academics is about grant-seeking and ass-kissing foremost (and living in your car), not whatever the discipline at hand is.

Physics itself is oblivious to that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Anyone have a non-paywall copy?</comment>


TI LM393 – dual comparator: weekend die-shot - <AUTHOR> http://zeptobars.ru/en/read/TI-LM393-dual-comparator

<comment><USER2> If you like these microphotographs of silicon dies, here's an oldie but a goodie:

[http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/index.html](http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/index.html)

Lots of inside jokes and hidden things on many of your favorite old chips.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's the datasheet with schematic: [http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm393.pdf](http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm393.pdf)

Ah, the days when 9 transistors could change the world.</comment>


Would You Trust Less a Business Partner Who Cheats on His/Her Spouse? - <AUTHOR> http://ben.casnocha.com/2008/12/would-you-trust-less-a-biz-partner-who-cheats-on-hisher-spouse.html

<comment><USER2> The issue isn't trust, or relationships. The issue is lawyers and how being dragged into litigation will affect the business. If the relationship goes into divorce, you can expect having to answer subpoenas, depositions and other discovery yourself. Now your legal budget just jumped, and you can't accurately budget for litigation. If the significant other of your partner is married, maybe their soon-to-be ex-significant other involves you in litigation as well. Maybe the scorned individual believes that your business isn't being run on the up and up. So they report you to the SEC, IRS, FBI, who knows? There is a buttload of woe awaiting you in case any of these things happens. So in this modern world, at least in the United States, your business partner is exposing the business to greater risk because of his actions. Recognize that your partner should shoulder the additional costs, because there will be additional costs and lawyers. If you're lucky, everyone is an adult and keeps the personal personal. But that's more aspirational than reality.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Bottom Line: I think less of a person who cheats on their partner, but in a professional context I do not distrust him/her altogether. I just trust them less."

Personally, I probably wouldn't know. People dont confide such things in me and I dont look for it. If it is just one more example of untrustworthy behavior, probably I would take it into consideration. If it's just something in a relationship, it's none of my business.

</comment><comment><USER4> Like everything, it would depend on the circumstances. You can't directly compare emotional and sexual behaviour with business trust. So I would draw a pretty "hard" line, in the language of the article.

The sex part is almost irrelevant. What would matter is how they did it, just like anything else. If they were a complete asshole about it, I'd "note" that, just like I'd "note" any other obvious asshole-ish behaviour, which is obviously bad. If they were discrete, good natured, trying to meet their needs while keeping everyone happy - isn't that a good thing?

Hell, I'd be inclined to look negatively on someone who _didn't_ cheat if they obviously wanted/needed to. Stuck in a passionless marriage and unwilling to do something about it out of fear/devotion to "tradition"/don't want to upset parents, etc? That would lead me to question their ability to act and take risks. If they wanted to but thought they couldn't get away with it, I'd look down on that as being insufficiently devious. Etc.

Look, marriage is not perfect or even unambiguously good. It's an artificial institution which, in many cases, is imposed on people by society. We could discuss this all day but bottom line, it's a complex and "tainted" subject and almost completely different from other types of trust and honesty. You might as well ask if you "trust less" someone who cheats on video games.

On the other hand, this article rings of self-righteousness. In my opinion, those who make a big deal about the moral deviations of others usually have plenty to hide themselves. So reading that article certainly makes me trust Mr Casnocha less, sure, now that I'm wondering why he feels the need to loudly proclaim his virtue. Regardless, I could certainly do without his sermonising, and lack of understanding of the human condition, if I ever had to do business with him.

</comment><comment><USER5> Good question. Definitely something I 'note'</comment>


Scientists find damage to coral near BP well - <AUTHOR> http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-scientists-coral-bp.html

<comment><USER2> Why am I not surprised?</comment>


Ask HN: What are 3 company functions remote work is not well-suited for? - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/kevinsxu/status/1255304613567365121 <comment><USER2> Going out for lunch together.

Front desk reception.

Packing up a laid-off employee's desk into a box, and escorting them to the parking lot.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Mine are: mentoring junior employees, onboarding new recruits, discussing & setting OKRs.</comment>


Slicehost: How A Goal-Setting Bootstrapper Launch & Sold His Business - <AUTHOR> http://mixergy.com/slicehost-how-a-goal-setting-bootstrapper-launch-sold-his-business-with-matt-tanase/

<comment><USER2> I'm a happy Slicehost user for many years now (my site runs on it) - I love the product Matt has created

<comment><USER3> Thanks I appreciate that!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was a customer of Slicehost from day 1, literally. I told everybody about them because Matt and Jason (the co-founders) were the most awesome company founders I had ever dealt with. They were beyond helpful and always went out of their way to please their users. The good things that happened to them are fully deserved.

Thank you and best of luck with your new project, Matt!

</comment><comment><USER5> I didn't know Slicehost was bootstrapped or even that it sold to Rackspace! Definitely going to watch this one.

</comment><comment><USER6> I well remember being an employee at a hosting company in summer 2006 and pleading with my boss to get into Ruby hosting. We were early experimenters with xen at the time. He just didn't see Ruby ever amounting to anything for his enterprise clients.

</comment><comment><USER7> Spending a Saturday listening to Mixergy while working on a startup. Great weekend :)

</comment><comment><USER8> Great interview.</comment>


Was the Art of S-Town Worth the Pain? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/04/was-the-art-of-s-town-worth-the-pain/522366/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> An enthralling story. I highly recommend the podcast.

I mostly disagree with the author's apparent bias (that the podcast wasn't "worth the pain" it would cause to its subjects). If Reed was doing his journalistic duty in assuring consent of his subjects (which he seems to unfailingly respect, as evidenced from the content of the podcast episodes), then the subjects have consented to being "on the record," and have essentially waived their right to private conversation.

It's trickier with the main subject of the podcast, given the circumstances. He clearly consented to being recorded, but uncovering more of his private life through the testimony of others could be against his wishes. I would argue that the main subject would want this story told in its entirety, given his raw disposition and tendency for taking a microscope to the problems of the world.

Ultimately, I think it was an ethically sound journalistic telling of a captivating story. I highly recommend taking a listen.

<comment><USER3> 1) I doubt the subjects were aware of the context their statements would be framed in.

2) "I would argue the subject of the podcast would consent" is not the same as consent. It's one thing if it's a public figure. The subject of this podcast was not a public figure.

<comment><USER4> Regarding 2, I'd be interested to know whether there was a different legal/ethical standard for people who have died. Surely there must be a journalism professor around here somewhere.

<comment><USER5> Dead people can't be defamed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not going to spoil the podcast I guess, but towards the end I was definitely really not enjoying how deep it was going. I think it pushed at least an episode beyond the journalistic ethics I'm comfortable with.

I don't think any of us can speak for the subject of the podcast (and I think it still matters despite how it ended up), but when I put myself in his shoes I would not feel good about how far the podcast went.

<comment><USER4> This is the bargain you make when you talk to a journalist, you get your side of the story on the record, but you usually have no control over where the journalist takes it. You're not comfortable with that, don't speak to journalists. Barring outright misrepresentations by the journalist about their intentions, I don't see anything wrong with this.

<comment><USER3> Some of them _didn 't_ speak to Reed and still ended up in the story.

<comment><USER7> Maybe I'm misremembering: Who didn't speak to him and ended up in the story?

<comment><USER3> The subject's mother, as I recall.

<comment><USER7> Was there anything damaging revealed about her? I don't remember anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My two cents as a sufferer of emotional pain is that if the exposure of a personal emotional wound, raw and without bandage, helps others heal then that is worth it. This is speculation as I have no formal training in mental health nor neuroscience, but it is my anecdotally formed opinion that any person suffering from loneliness is sure to appreciate the palliative effects of the outing of one's personal pain for others to relate to, thereby serving as both a sword by which the personal enemy of loneliness is cut down and a bridge on which to share the same power with others. To me, if one cannot understand this then one does not understand loneliness nor how to dig themselves out of it. Which John may not have.

Brian Reed intimately got to know and was deeply affected by John's story, and it is shameful to me that others without understanding of neither their relationship nor what John went through would think themselves judge and jury on the morality of this production. It is reasonable to question them, but to pass the judgement that Brian Reed is taking advantage of John for his own journalistic advances is to not think very deeply about the podcast in my opinion. Brian likely recognized this relationship between the sharing of loneliness and its cure, and likely conjectured that this is what a healthy version of John would have wanted.

</comment><comment><USER9> A lot of people have raved about this podcast, but I thought this critical read of the thing was extremely interesting:

[http://hazlitt.net/longreads/airbrushing- shittown](http://hazlitt.net/longreads/airbrushing-shittown)

Sounds like it's actually kind of messed up in whose perspectives it chooses to accommodate and whose it fails to include. Very good (long) read.

<comment><USER10> Interesting read. Why say it in 500 words when you can say it in 6312.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have deep reservations about the way S-Town was produced and edited.

I think it's likely Brian outed people who didn't want to be outed, who also happen to live in a violently intolerant society. That's journalistically unethical.

Brian also does a lot of bisexual erasure in S-Town and that's not cool either.

<comment><USER12> I totally agree that things got pretty uncomfortable at times during the show, and the Brian Reed covered some perhaps excessively personal things, but I'm curious if you can go into detail on the bisexual erasure you mention. Are you referring to the perspectives on John's sexuality, or were there other instances I missed?

<comment><USER11> I'm referring specifically to how Brian talked about John's sexuality. While it's true that he eventually reports John's own words on the subject, otherwise Brian treats it as a dichotomy between gay and straight, and doesn't even talk about bisexuals, or even men who have sex with men (MSM), which is a distinct and important orientation in its own right.

<comment><USER13> I didn't think it was his role to explain this. The listener can draw their own conclusions from the material, I think.

<comment><USER11> Sorry for believing that journalists should report responsibly even in an informal podcast setting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was actually pretty disappointed in the story, mainly I suppose because I didn't really think there was a story. I can't really say more without spoilers. As far as true crime goes, Crimetown is leaps and bounds better.

<comment><USER15> FWIW I don't think S-Town was intended to be true crime.</comment></comment>


Testing distributed systems - <AUTHOR> https://asatarin.github.io/testing-distributed-systems/ <comment><USER2> Always neat to see real world stories about using TLA+. Putting the talk on my to watch list.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a really good list. Thanks.</comment>


YC W17 Launch: MDAcne, Supr Daily, Bitrise, and Bulletin - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-w17-launch-mdacne-supr-daily-bitrise-and-bulletin/ <comment><USER2> Bulletin seems great! I work in Soho and am always surprised to see empty shops. I do wonder if it's successful, if it will face the same criticism as Airbnb - it prices out long term tenants in favor of more lucrative short term ones.

</comment><comment><USER3> I really enjoyed this selection. All are valid problems and I can see how they can be successful. Maybe not billion dollar companies.

<comment><USER4> i think each of these has billion dollar potential. they address massive markets that are proven money makers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> YC - Love the blog post intro format. If you offered a daily email with new YC company descriptions I would subscribe (just subscribed to weekly). I've invested in over 100 startups--this is more than curiosity.

<comment><USER6> Hey, I just looked at your twitter profile. How does one invest $500 in a startup?

<comment><USER7> [https://wefunder.com](https://wefunder.com)

Note: weirdly high number of coffee and alcohol brands.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Really liking Bulletin - with the number of 'pop-up' shops here in Sydney, I'm sure a trend that is world-wide, they're solving a supply and demand side issue.

</comment><comment><USER9> The commodification of land is antisocial and bad for other economic agents. Euthanasia of the rentier class is good policy all, including the rentier class.</comment>


My thoughts as a film set technician on SOPA & PIPA (against my union's wishes) - <AUTHOR> http://www.darkheartfelt.com/blog/2012/1/18/thoughts-from-a-tvfilm-set-technician-on-sopa-and-pipa.html

<comment><USER2> Why is there a six month lag? Is it to create an artificial urgency to watch the movie in the theater or else you don't get to see it for six months?

<comment><USER3> It's a marketing strategy commonly known in the industry as "windowing." The purpose of windowing a movie is primarily to avoid two-way cannibalization: of box office receipts by DVD purchases, and vice versa.

In this way, studios have been able to monetize the same customer base twice for the same product -- once at the theaters, and once on home video. Say what you will about the morality of the business practice, but there's nothing inherently illegal or unethical about it. Almost all consumer products companies rely on similar strategies for marketing their goods.

As a consumer, I have the freedom to choose not to buy into the scheme. If I'm interested in seeing a movie, I can choose to watch it in theaters and be done with it. I can choose to watch it on Netflix and be done with it. I can choose to buy it on Blu-ray if I absolutely love it, and plan on rewatching it a million times in high-def. I can do any or all of those things.

As an entertainment industry professional, I do grow tired of the windowing system. It's a relic of an increasingly distant era -- one in which instant distribution across multiple channels was not possible, and in which real scarcity existed (and artificial scarcity did not need to be maintained to preserve the illusion of such). That said, I do understand the business rationale behind it.

Ultimately, the free market will determine the fate of the windowing system. And if recent years have given us any indication, it's that cannibalization is happening. The window system is on shaky ground. People are avoiding theaters as ticket prices rise at higher-than-inflation rates, and as home video setups become increasingly capable of providing a cinema-quality experience for less and less money. (And then there's piracy, which is a different issue altogether, but which hasn't actually put much of a dent in the studios' bottom lines to date. IMO, the jury is still out, but the threat is massively overblown).

As for why there's a six-month gap in between the theatrical closure and the home video release, that's almost entirely to create artificial scarcity and reignite interest in the product. With today's technology, there is absolutely no reason why a studio couldn't release a film on home video (or digitally) the day after the movie leaves theaters. (Or even on the same day it hits theaters).

Finally: we should note that theaters and studios are two entirely different entities, and legally, they cannot be owned in the US by the same parent companies. So theater owners have a strong vested interested in the windowing system. It is their lifeblood right now. Studios love double-dipping the same customers, but they could still survive without windowing.

<comment><AUTHOR> The "free market" huh? Yeah right ---> <http://projects.propublica.org/sopa/pipa#roll_call>

<comment><USER3> I think you're misinterpreting me here. Windowed theatrical / home video release strategies are orthogonal to PIPA and SOPA (to which, for the record, I am staunchly opposed). Theater groups and studios would still employ a windowing strategy absent PIPA and SOPA, and vice versa.

And yes, you are entirely free to opt out of the windowing system by not buying the same movie twice. While I agree that the industry employs many deplorable tactics in an attempt to stave off technological change, there are plenty of things the consumer has freedom to decide for himself. Nobody's forcing you to pay for a movie in theaters and then pay again for it on DVD. Nobody's forcing you to buy a DVD, and then buy the "Special Edition" of the same movie 6 months later. Just as nobody's forcing you to buy Gilette's newest razor model, then buy the newer version a year from now. Or to buy the ten different "pre-workout," "post-workout," etc., versions of Gatorade currently on the market. Or to buy the "Limited Edition" Nike sneakers at inflated prices in December, only to find out that the edition becomes unlimited and goes on sale in January.

We can call these practices annoying, and they certainly are. But they're common to all consumer products industries, they're consumer-avoidable, and they're nowhere close to the same ballpark as PIPA and SOPA.</comment></comment></comment></comment>