This guy says advertising is a public good

Maclean's columnist Andrew Potter moonlights with a guest column published in the Ottawa Citizen (and, presumably, other CanWest papers), making the case for advertising.

Just as pollution typically involves the dumping of the byproducts of industrial manufacture into our physical environment, many critics talk of advertising as polluting our "mental environment." In both cases, we are involuntarily exposed to something that is at best worthless, but perhaps even toxic and harmful to our physical or mental health. Advertising is routinely blamed for all manner of social ills, from obesity and anorexia to envy and unhappiness.

Potter (the co-author of The Rebel Sell and a former member of the board of This Magazine) points out that the true cost of a magazine or newspaper would be considered prohibitive if it weren't offset by advertising revenue. To illustrate what user-pay would mean, he points out that a typical issue of the Times of London would cost over $50 if it were ad-free.

If we set aside the implausible notion that we have all been brainwashed, it is hard to avoid concluding that many of us actually enjoy consuming the halo of symbolism associated with our favourite branded goods. Indeed, the only way to explain the fact that hundreds of thousands of (mostly) women are willing to spend seven or eight bucks on a magazine like Vogue, which consists almost entirely of ads for branded fashion goods, is that they get significant vicarious enjoyment from the lifestyles portrayed.

He says essentially that the unpleasant fact is that a free press is paid for by advertising.

The unfortunate lesson in all of this is the same one we learned as we became environmentally conscious in the '60s and '70s: Pollution may have a private cause, but it is a public problem. If we are really serious about cleaning up our mental environment, it is going to get pretty expensive. Either taxes and prices are going to go up, or the quality and range of socially beneficial goods and services is going to go down.Given these alternatives, we may find that putting up with advertising is a relative bargain.