You seem to think that the problem lies only with people being programmed to buy things - the choice of word is probably not helping here a lot - but the real issue here is about the validation loops people experience when on social media.

It's not that someone else is programming you to vote candidate X instead of candidate Y or that now you want to buy brand Z, it's that we are rewiring our brains to follow the short-term feedback loops in how we act within society, i.e. we don't go places anymore because we want to experience something new but to share the simple fact of going somewhere with our networks and getting validated by them. I think that's the bigger issue here.