#buzzfeedsucks

You must be joking

http://allentown.craigslist.org/cto/5012100584.html

Ad-funded sites or creators are not cutting edge but depressingly retrograde. Indeed, the only distinction from the past is the extent of our reliance. All the problems associated with advertising have metastasized in digital space, where marketers have more power and face fewer regulations than under the old paradigm.

While it may look like we are getting something for nothing, advertising-financed culture is not free. We pay environmentally, we pay with our self-esteem, and we pay with our attention, privacy, and knowledge. But we also pay with our pocketbooks, and this is key. Advertising is, in essence, a private tax. Because promotional budgets are factored into the price we pay for goods, customers end up footing the bill. That means that, all together, we spend more than $700 billion a year on advertising, a tremendous waste of money on something that has virtually no social value and that most of us despise.

Advertising, after all, doesn't feed or house us, or educate us, or enlighten us, or make our lives better or more beautiful. Instead, advertising makes our culture less spirited and fearless, more servile and uninspired. Surely all that money could be better spent producing something we actually care about.

Astra Taylor, The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age.

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