The idea feels like sci-fi because you’re so used to it, imagining ads gone feels like asking to outlaw gravity. But humanity had been free of current forms of advertising for 99.9% of its existence. Word-of-mouth and community networks worked just fine. First-party websites and online communities would now improve on that.
The traditional argument pro-advertising—that it provides consumers with necessary information—hasn’t been valid for decades.
Do rural jokels not have phones already? It’s not like you wouldn’t have product announcements and news and forum discussing it.
Statistically, rural users always lag behind in pretty much every metric.
For example, globally, 83 percent of urban people have access to the internet, 49 percent rural. In the US, 83 percent of urban people have a smartphone. 65 percent rural. Urban people also use their phone more. And that’s not even taking into account cultural differences between urban and rural settings. They simply aren’t as plugged in as you and I.
Farmer Bob isn’t going on tech forums to read up on new phone releases. But his TV will show him that phone exists and entice him to buy it.
Point isn’t about the phones as such, it’s about some things simply not reaching that rural bubble.