>I do want to be able to search a database of vendors (with degrees of trust associated with them) with objective descriptions of available goods and services a

>I do want to be able to search a database of vendors (with degrees of trust associated with them) with objective descriptions of available goods and services at known costs, either one-time or recurring. If I'm looking for something that's completely new, I should still be able to find it by using relevant terms and weightings (cost, materials, origin of materials, shipping distance, labor chain, etc.) Exactly this. It's not necessarily wrong that advertising is justified on the grounds that it serves the interests of advertisers. But the attempt to justify it as beneficial to the consumer, well, every case where advertising is serving such a pro-consumer purpose is a case where a general purpose information directory would serve that same purpose better.