But does that mean spending billions in resources on getting people to consume more sugary drinks is a net positive?
I don't think so. I think the goal of having more people consume sugary drinks is a net negative even if it were achieved for free, and that the direction our decision-making needs to be pushed (if at all) is towards consuming fewer sugary drinks (to counteract our evolutionary bias towards consuming more than is healthy for us), and probably spending less of our time hearing/thinking about them too.
> One problem is that people sometimes think of ads as only web display ads. They are not aware that there are many other kinds of ads. Independent review sites, travel blogs, [...]
Still seems to come back to the same issue - sure you can hold a broad definition of "ads" that includes independent travel blogs if you want, but that isn't what the "fellow techy, working on serving ads" in question is working on, or what people are talking about when they complain about someone being paid to shove a product in their face unsolicited when they're trying to look at something else.