The worst part about the industry is its a zero sum game. All you are trying to do is redirect dollars that would go somewhere else to your thing. You don't add

The worst part about the industry is its a zero sum game. All you are trying to do is redirect dollars that would go somewhere else to your thing. You don't add value in that process, you simply redirect it. And because its an arms race it drives businesses to have ludicrous overhead in the form of marketing to reach the audience of whatever actual thing of value they want to sell. Its one of the laundry list of things I can imagine a far future enlightened species looking back at us and thinking "wow, they sure wasted trillions of hours and dollars just trying to manipulate each other into spending their money differently". Its absolutely necessary to participate on the individual level, but on the macroeconomic level it should look to anyone as being completely absurd and a huge waste of potential. Its a lot like overspending on the military - the primary function for advertising is zero sum while for the military it is a negative value, while you hope for circumstantial value to emerge and try to use it as an excuse to justify the whole when advertisers make entertaining ads (see the Superbowl Commercials or Flex Tape) or when the military produces scientific innovation.