I'm not a lobbyist, though my wife used to be. She lobbied on behalf of a construction trade organization. 98% of her work involved telling legislators about the benefits of integrating design and build phases of construction (instead of hiring a separate architect and contractor and doing design and build in separate phases).

Lobbying is a way of structuring administration of regulation that shifts responsibility from unelected bureaucrats to people. Do you think politicians should be sitting around reading papers about the reputation economy and thinking about where those ideas can be applied? It would be intractable and a huge waste of time considering the vast universe of concerns involved. And it's not like ordinary citizens are clamoring writing letters about how the reputation economy enabled by smart phones makes certain taxi regulations obsolete. It's far better for lobbyists to do the relevant work and tell politicians what they should fix and why.