Comment by benj111
17 days ago
I'm not saying the consumer is helped.
I'm saying that all businesses aim to make money, so the fact that this one is doesn't make it morally wrong.
Further you've ascribed some price we 'should' be paying. There's no such thing, and you can't even say that prices would be lower without it. Tobacco companies haven't lowered prices in countries where advertising is banned.
>To make things worse, the consumer is nudged into buying more stuff and thus contributing to global overconsumption
A. Surely the consumer would have bought something else? Although gambling advertising is popular...
B. You are now contradicting yourself. You made the claim that advertising was essentially an economic dead weight. Now you're saying it contributes to over consumption. If advertising only puts up prices, that means we can buy less things than we would be able to.
C. This is assuming only bad things are advertised.
In summary. You're trying to make a quasi economic argument against advertising that isn't really correct. I have my own issues with advertising, so I'm not particularly defending it. But that doesn't excuse making up an argument that doesn't make much sense.
The entire problem is that you're looking at it from an economic perspective. From within that framework your reasoning might make sense, but that doesn't mean that with a different starting point it is still valid.
> A + B
No, because you can save money. And when you buy things not on a whim you might actually buy something that has lasting value as opposed to all the tons of cheap fashion people buy.
> C. This is assuming only bad things are advertised.
For good things, go to the yellow pages. I'm not against advertising. Just the forms where it is shoved in my face randomly instead of brought up when I am actively looking for something and want to be informed about products, and of course the forms that have user tracking.