>Why does anyone spend money on Advertising? To manipulate behavior. ... Or to make people simply aware of your existence Me : You look thirsty, would you lik

>Why does anyone spend money on Advertising? To manipulate behavior. ... Or to make people simply aware of your existence Me : You look thirsty, would you like a glass of water. You : It seems like you're manipulating me. The above is the reducto ad absurdum lens you seem to be applying to advertising. Awareness of information is not the same thing as agent coercion. Does the ladder exist you bet. But the proportion of advertising that falls into the former dwarfs the ladder. The self organizing aspect has to do with business models for sustaining infrastructure, it's not emergent fact of the web it self.