More than anyone else, Adolf Hitler completely understood the union between government propaganda and between – and advertising, that they were in some ways the same thing.
In fact, the big steps forward for advertising, especially after World War I were when government just began employing the tools of advertising for its own purposes to get people to join the army and other things.
I think that’s been really the key, the idea of trying to harness social capital for selling purposes. That we’ve let this happen so easily without clearly getting something in exchange is kind of amazing to me.
Wikipedia, a nonprofit, is an enormously popular website but has managed to operate without advertising. And, you know, maybe it’s a little simpler than Google and YouTube, but it does show there’s another way.
There’s always going to be a tradeoff between trolling and anonymity, and I guess that’s the way life will be. And you can manage it, but you can’t cure it.
