Advertising may make people miserable, but it still has its uses
Paywalled, so I don&#x27;t know how the rest of the article reads, but<p>&gt;By informing consumers about the relative merits of various products, ads improve the quality of purchasing decisions and, conceivably, leave both firms and shoppers better off than they would be in an ad-free world.<p>Vile bullshit. There can be no trust in modern advertisement. The overwhelming majority of modern ads serve a singular purpose: to drive sales. They communicate nothing concrete about features, performance, desirability, or anything of the like, and do <i>absolutely nothing</i> to improve the quality of purchasing decisions. The entire industry is built on bullshit, and I wonder if the pervasiveness of fundamentally dishonest, so called indirect marketing has eroded the average person&#x27;s ability to rationally evaluate information in media.<p>But everything I read about the advertisement industry, - data harvesting, shady marketing tactics, popups and dark UI design, exaggeration of effectiveness to corporate clients - consistently serves to reinforce the notion that the entire industry, perhaps in principle, is rotten to the core. I immediately refuse any interest from adtech recruitment because I feel like I&#x27;d be directly harming society in building such technology.<p>In a perfect world, sure, your product is sufficiently differentiated, you can communicate your advantages clearly and, most importantly, the people viewing your ads are willing to give you enough time and attention to rationally consider the direct marketing points you convey. But our reality is one where a thirty second spot of anthropomorhic squirrels causing an accident is supposed to convince you to buy insurance for the car you&#x27;re expected to lust over because some handsome man with a hotter wife and more money than you on TV got one for Christmas.