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> If the billboards were all about driving-related products

Well, I don't complain about road signs.



The road signs are also unwelcome eye sores. However, they provide a lot of value by achieving safer road traffic so we tolerate them.

That value still needs to be compared and evaluated for delivering information vs delivering annoyance. If information were delivered by giant, flashing, multicolored road signs every 50 meters the answer would be different. My 2c.


Precisely. Thank you.

Road signs are relevant so we dont complain about them despite being an ugly eyesore.


We don’t complain not because road signs, in addition to being an eye sore, are relevant to our current activity, but because they provide significant value.

While relevance has some correlation to value, that correlation is pretty weak; it is easy to find examples of high relevance and very negative value. We should not conflate those.

Your opponent (with whom I agree) argued that the problem with most YT ads and billboards is negative value. Which will stay even if google makes them relevant. My 2c.


It seems we have a slightly different definition of 'relevant'.

Regardless, we all agree: roadsigns are ugly but ok, billboards are just plain bad.


Good point. I assumed relevance was approximately similar to the correlation, without a strong assumption on the signs. Which is just my interpretation, not a universal definition.


Here in the UK we have several campaigns for reducing 'street clutter', which includes excessive use of road signs.




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