I've always seen advertising as a game of iterated prisoner's dilemma. If every business cooperated and agreed to not advertise, consumers would still be able t

I've always seen advertising as a game of iterated prisoner's dilemma. If every business cooperated and agreed to not advertise, consumers would still be able to seek and find products and services they wanted, and businesses wouldn't need to spend money on ads. As soon as one business started to buy ads, however, they'd have an immense advantage and competitors would quickly follow suit. So as soon as one business stops cooperating and starts advertising, the entire market devolves into the equilibrium we see today: our lives are completely saturated with ads. The fact that business can carry on as usual when everyone is forced to cooperate in Sao Paulo shows that advertising is mostly a huge inefficiency.