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All of the sudden, they're this amazing benefit for society.No, they're an amazing benefit to your business. I'm sure your candles are great, but society doesn't need them (your candles, specifically) to survive. People would continue to find candles without your advertisements. Maybe candles that aren't as nice as yours, but people will get by just fine, and wouldn't know (or care) what they were missing.
> Advertisements can be good (when the business is good and genuinely wants you to know about good new product)
Advertising is emotional manipulation. Why do I need to know about good products, even genuinely good ones? If I have an actual, articulated need for something, I can go out and look for it. But if I'm not actually looking for something, but someone advertises to me and convinces me to buy their thing, likely I would have gotten along just fine without it.
> An optimist would say there are more good than bad. I suppose you wouldn't consider yourself an optimist.
False dichotomy. Whether there are more good companies that honestly try to hawk their wares, or more bad companies that try to trick people into buying their garbage, is irrelevant. Advertising is a blight on society.
The thing that really makes my stomach churn, though, is that if I ran a company, I'd absolutely advertise. It's the prisoner's dilemma. Because advertising exists and others will use it, I can't opt out of using it myself. I feel super gross about this fact.