> So you think the reason the Soviet union was less colourful was because there wasn't ads?
I think it can have been a contributory but not a determinative factor. Mainly, I was just relaying an interesting observation, about the impact of advertising on public spaces, that I hadn't heard elsewhere, or previously, which prompted me to think that eradicating advertising probably isn't an optimum solution.
I recall watching, some years ago, a documentary about the making of Tetris in which one of the contributors noted how much less colourful public spaces were in the advertising-free Soviet Union compared to the West.
Which isn't to say that a better balance couldn't be struck (in the West and elsewhere) now, but 'cancer' is the sort of thing you want to eradicate rather than moderate.