3 ms·

If we're talking about things that capitalism requires, one is perfect information. Is advertising closer to perfect information than never hearing about produc

• anoncake 7y ago
  Advertising isn't the only way of hearing about products. Newspapers (for goods with a wide audience) and specialized magazines can serve this need. While advertisers try to give customers (mis-)information that makes them buy $PRODUCT, magazines (that are paid for by the customers) are incentivized to give them useful information that helps them make good decisions. That's a clear win. Classified-like ads may be better than nothing. But the average ad is worse than useless. What information do we gain from, say, an ad for Coca-Cola? None at best since we already know it exists. More likely, we learn to associate it with happy, healthy, fit young people. Our rational mind may know this association is bullshit. But there are some very stupid people in the world and our emotional minds don't really take orders from our intellect anyway. Never hearing about a product frequently is better than advertising.