I guess we have different definitions of necessary. Advertising takes many forms. One form of advertising is product placement on shelf space in your drug store

I guess we have different definitions of necessary. Advertising takes many forms. One form of advertising is product placement on shelf space in your drug store. To go back to the example of razor blades...without explicit advertising, someone has to have the prominent shelf space. Shelf space in drug stores is limited. What that means is that the shelf space is going to go to the highest bidder. How then is a cheap razor blade company going to get on the shelves? The answer is that they aren't. Which means that the only channel they are going to be able to distribute through is one like the internet. If you are running your cheap razor blade company which unequivocally benefits everyone who buys it (the razors are just as good, but cost dramatically less) how do you reach your customers without advertising? How does that company get bootstrapped? Do you think that company wasn't worthwhile, or do you think that it could have happened without advertising?