It's 2026.
We can have word of mouth, genuine, in forums and social media.
We can have reviews, genuine, in websites.
We can have websites which present new products and business, not as paid sponsorships.
We can search on our own initiative and go to their website.
We can have online catalogs.
And tons of other ways.
And not a single one of these is tenable, even when combined. How do the people that post reviews, or spread something over word-of-mouth, discover the thing in the first place? Try your hand at starting a business and trying to sell goods or services using these methods and see how well it works.
Tenable for what, global business? Many local businesses do fine without advertising and/or using these methods.
Making global business harder and forcing things more local actually sounds like a great benefit.
I'm all for that as well.
We could use less 1T companies and more a few billion or 100s of millions level companies too. I miss the "focused on Mac and iPod" era Apple.
Banning advertising would have the opposite effect; entrenched players would have a massive moat. The biggest gains from advertising by far accrue to newer entrants, not the big companies.
>How do the people that post reviews, or spread something over word-of-mouth, discover the thing in the first place?
The follow industry conventions, visit registries of industry websites, have professional lists where companies submit their announcements (and not to the general public) and so on.
>Try your hand at starting a business and trying to sell goods or services using these methods and see how well it works.
If advertising is banned, it will work just as good as for any competitor.