Even worse, because advertising is a Red Queen's Race where the only limit on expense is what your competitors are spending, it's actually worse than unproductive because it increases company expenses without increasing product quality, leading to higher costs on everything for everyone.
You cannot be serious it. All of the ad tech companies produce a service people want otherwise no one would use them!
There may be other services that might be better if not for network effects, but it is trivially true that a search engine is better for most people than no search engine at all. And that is what is produced.
Even worse, because advertising is a Red Queen's Race where the only limit on expense is what your competitors are spending, it's actually worse than unproductive because it increases company expenses without increasing product quality, leading to higher costs on everything for everyone.
You cannot be serious it. All of the ad tech companies produce a service people want otherwise no one would use them!
There may be other services that might be better if not for network effects, but it is trivially true that a search engine is better for most people than no search engine at all. And that is what is produced.
The same could be said of tobacco companies. You might want to rethink your argument.