On Wed, 16 May 2007, Ray Saintonge wrote:
I see it as, "Our less clueful brethren busy pushing {{spoiler}} on everyone wouldn't be so enthusiastic if they saw it as merely an advertising technique rather than a necessity. We shouldn't buy into the film industry's games."
Well, Usenet has been using spoiler warnings for around 20 years and it has no connection whatsoever with the advertising industry.
The less said about what happens on usenet the better. :-)
Advertising techniques are all the more effective when they become systemic, and the user doesn't know that that's what he is doing.
Is there any way to falsify this claim?
It seems pretty obvious (though not obvious enough, I suppose) that spoiler warnings on Usenet are there because some people think it's a courtesy to other people to not show them things they would rather not see. Advertising has nothing to do with it. It is no more connected to advertising than the fact that people are talking about media at all is advertising (producers of media want to create buzz, after all).