I don't think there is any way to get rid of ads from society, as you say. I don't think ads were that big of a problem historically. The problem is that the re

I don't think there is any way to get rid of ads from society, as you say. I don't think ads were that big of a problem historically. The problem is that the recent (20ish years) era where the fast response of internet ads (a click on the ad immediately tell you it worked), compared to a tv ad (you wait a month to infer ad effectiveness from the revenue numbers), has enabled rapid A/B testing of ad design. What that means is that ad design is rapidly iterated upon to maximize revenue of the company [1]. We also know from first principles that ads can have negative influences on people (making people dissatisfied with their bodies or lives, or making them engage in medically harmful behavior like smoking etc etc.). Now, there is very little legal regulation of what can be in an ad, except that factual statements in the ad are true; and ad creators rarely self-regulate. So you have one variable A=product revenue. You have another variable B=negative psychological impact on viewers of ads. The ad optimization process only optimizes A, and places almost no constraints on B while doing so. Guess what? A significant percentage of ads end up with both high A and B. This is the problem. I am not proposing any solutions, but the problem exists. [1]. Also the techniques learned from internet ads are applied to tv, print and billboard ads.