With google advertisements mean that your competitors page doesn't appear above your search listing. It means that if you sell something you more or less have t

With google advertisements mean that your competitors page doesn't appear above your search listing. It means that if you sell something you more or less have to buy ads for your own name, or else people searching explicitly for you will be led to your competitors products. It's sort of like a race to the bottom. With facebook I understand that if you want to actually get a message out to people who've explicitly subscribed to your content you need to pay them. Same sort of thing. Sure, it's an "ad", but not in the same sense as like a billboard or a TV spot. It's actually game-theoretic coercion.