Why?
Especially in a developing country where consumers ability to pay for such things is going to be limited, that will presumably deprive some margin of the population of media/services that are currently ad supported.
If they do have a dollar to spend then why wouldn’t they spend it on what they wanted to watch in the first place rather than spend it with me, the advertiser.
Many advertisers may avoid advertising or lower their ad budgets. This means the tech platform makes less revenue. This means the platform and the video creator both make less revenue. This means less videos get created.
All of these happen at the population level.
I hate ads, but regulations that are for things that aren't public health (including mental health), anti-monopolization, etc. are probably bad for innovation and growth.
You have to balance regulation and over-regulation.
I say this as a proponent of antitrust regulation against tech giants and a privacy advocate against tracking, storing, and correlating user activity.
Everything needs to be kept in balance. Regulation is a blunt instrument and is better used to punish active rule breaking rather than trying to predict how markets should work.
Break up Google. Don't tell content marketplaces how to run ads. They know their customers far better than old politicians do.
If ads become onerous, alternatives emerge. Different channels, platforms, ad blocking. It's a healthier ecosystem that doesn't grow ossified with decades old legalese. Regulations that actively stymie the creation of new competition.
Now every new video and social startup in Vietnam has to check a bunch of boxes.
If you, like me and most people I know, hate ads, why would it be a bad thing to limit it?
What are we expecting to actually accomplish with all this platform growth thing?
I derive incredible value from YouTube. It wasn't always great, but it is recently full of extremely good educational content, tech talks, independent journalism, how-tos, independent film and animation, and so much more.
I'd wager that you use and benefit from a lot of services that are paid for via advertising. Even public transit is subsidized by advertising.
this all sounds great. ideal, even.
At best, it's as you said, the platform and creator make less money (Youtube gives 55% of ad revenue to the creator). This would naturally lead to less content eventually.
At worst, video content becomes unsustainable without a subscription.
I, personally, am drowning in "content".
Great. Once that happens, we can work on regulation to kill even more advertising.
I am unsure what you are trying to say here. But if you mean to refer to "market distortion", I cannot see how that can be happening.
The reason is that these rules are supposed to be applicable universally to every company in the same way. And as such, they do not create any market distortion in one way or the other. Because everyone has to play by the same rules. Those are as fair market conditions as one can get, in my opinion.
> some might not bother
Why should that be a problem? If someone does not like the regulation in a particular jurisdiction, it is fine. No one is forcing them to operate there.
The main point is the following: If they want to operate, they have to play by the local rules. Just like everyone else.
Mobile ads in the US are heinous. Each one has a different mechanism for skipping, the skip buttons are micro sized and impossible to tap, some of them don't even work.
Standardization should have been up to the platforms selling ads, but they haven't done it. It's past time for local authorities to step in and protect consumers from predatory behavior.
So what if it is?
> makes global advertisers have to customize for the local audience
My understanding of advertising is that there is already substantial customization for local audiences.
To make it harder for people who dont care about Vietnam to do business.
Ive heard this garbage excuse since Reagan took a wrecking ball to regulations. Not making effective regulations is ALSO a market distorting thing, that encourages the absolute worst behaviors. And now with Citizens United, its $1 = 1 vote.
But no, "marrrrrkeeeeetttttt"
But assuming that they did, the situation seems like one where there could be any number or ways of following the letter or the law, while flouting the spirit of it. I don't dare imagine the creative ways these people will come up with to make entertainment even worse than it already is. So for areas that seem to require miles and miles of caveats and very specific rule-making, my gut reaction is that the regulatory path isn't the right one until we can break down the scope into something that simple regulations can accommodate without loophole. Put more simply: if it seems like people will just find ways around the problem, my assumption is just that we're not targeting the right problem yet and we need to break it down further, if regulation is the right solution at all.
But that is pretty assumptive, so - again - it's just a first feeling. Doesn't pass my vibe check.
Instead of prescribing exactly what you should do, describe the outcomes you want, and let case law fill in the rest of the owl. That's the only way to prevent violations like this.
To be fair, the main disadvantage of this approach is that law is much harder to understand. You can't just read the law as it is written, you also have to familiarize yourself with all the rulings that tell you how that law should actually be interpreted.
