I’d love to see a quantification of the negative externalities of advertising that incorporates a high value of attention, and then tax unavoidable public advertising to cover that externality. I’m by far the most concerned with things like billboards and park bench ads, which are designed to eye-catching and literally can’t be avoided without giving up wide swathes of life. Things like TV ads are much more opt-in, so while we maybe should tax those more heavily, it feels much less urgent to me.
The downside of this is that it’s essentially taxing speech, which is such an incredibly slippery slope that I think I might be against the whole thing. I feel like we ought to be able to tax eyecatching public displays in particular, but maybe that ends up being a tax on beauty which also seems bad.
I’d love to see a quantification of the negative externalities of advertising that incorporates a high value of attention, and then tax unavoidable public advertising to cover that externality. I’m by far the most concerned with things like billboards and park bench ads, which are designed to eye-catching and literally can’t be avoided without giving up wide swathes of life. Things like TV ads are much more opt-in, so while we maybe should tax those more heavily, it feels much less urgent to me.
The downside of this is that it’s essentially taxing speech, which is such an incredibly slippery slope that I think I might be against the whole thing. I feel like we ought to be able to tax eyecatching public displays in particular, but maybe that ends up being a tax on beauty which also seems bad.