The Ad Video Screens Don’t Make Money

The single biggest myth around advertising in public spaces and in public transit is that “it generates money for the municipality”, “it pays for the busses and trains”. The truth is that they do not generate resources. They only use resources and quite a lot of it. Oh, they move around money alright. Into the pockets of the viewscreen company that put them up. Never let them say that the screens make money or fund our transit. That is a scam. Now, I’m sure quite a lot of folks are thinking “Duh, obviously everybody knows they don’t factually nor actually ‘generate’ any money or resources. But they make it so that the corporations, who buy ads, help pay for our public transit, and that is why we allow and encourage them. Saying ‘they generate money’ is just a gricean shorthand that we’d expect everyone to be able to understand. Except you apparently.” They’d be wrong because I do understand that. I do understand that they meant “they move money”. I also understand that when we let…

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