> Advertising itself is good I used to think roughly the same - I'm really not that convinced anymore. I'd actually say your last point really drives home jus

> Advertising itself is good I used to think roughly the same - I'm really not that convinced anymore. I'd actually say your last point really drives home just how BAD advertising is right now. It's so bad that there's evolutionary pressure to learn to ignore advertisements. Ads are like a form of social parasite - They've hijacked a human instinct to share things we like and turned it into a profit motivated, manipulative, abusive channel to suck money out of people. Just like animals ridden with parasites are less fit - consumers who are most susceptible or surrounded by ads are less fit. Their decisions are influenced by ads to no longer objectively consider whether a product is useful to them. Like a mouse infected with toxoplasma is drawn to the small of cat urine - even though it means getting eaten far more often. Good for the parasite, bad for the mouse. Ads are good for the company, bad for the person.