There is also a flip side. While the point of advertising is to take your money, better advertising can also help you discover products you really need. For ex

There is also a flip side. While the point of advertising is to take your money, better advertising can also help you discover products you really need. For example, if they can guess when you car scheduled maintenance is, they can send you an ad related to it, and remind you that you need to do it, which is better than forgetting about it. I also have been notified of events I ended up attending and enjoyed, or received ads about food I really like. Did I spend more than I would have if it wasn't for these ads? Probably, but I don't consider going to an event I enjoy and eating well a loss of money. As for insurance companies, adjusting your premiums can also mean lowering them. Maybe not directly, but identifying risky customers allow them to propose a lower base rate because of the lower risk. Overall, that's unfair to those who are in the high risk group and can't do anything about it (normally that's when the government is supposed to intervene), but for you as a customer, it can be a good thing. I don't mean it can't be bad, in fact, I think ads are an overall net negative, but it is not all bad. The reason I think it is a net negative is that a lot of resources are spend on advertising, too much I think. These resources are things that you ultimately pay for and don't go into making a better product. The reason I think it is too much is that it is adversarial. A bit of advertising is a good thing, maybe someone makes the thing you really need, but if you are not aware of its existence, that's useless, and the entire point of good advertising is to make you aware of it. The problem is that when there is competition, each competitor wants you to buy their product instead of the other one, and their advertising efforts cancel out, that's how you get overwhelmed with ads.