Comment by blacksmith_tb

We can see historically that advertising evolved from the charmingly blunt "Foo Bros. makers of hats" to "makers of the FINEST hats" (untrue, but at least we still know what business they're in...) to "wear Foo or no one will talk to you again". Along the way, regulations had to be enacted here and there, snake oil didn't actually raise the dead, so lying about that was banned, but letting us feel that we're inadequate because we can see how happy and cool the people wearing Foo are on TV (or TT) is just their free speech. And of course there are the side effects TFA touches on like building trillion dollar empires for Goog and Meta, and using the same levers to manipulate voting and buying.

Personally, I can imagine a world without ads because I block them everywhere I can, and somehow I still manage to buy things, even if they might not be making me feel as cool as I should if I'd only play along.