Yes, just not a way to make something that improves our lives.
Or even if you manage to make something that improves our lives, advertising is an incentive to pervert it and hold it back (e.g. you create a social network so people from all over the world can meet, then ads make you cripple it, force feed BS to them, milk them with spam, exploit their private data, and so on...)
I have also bought many products from other businesses that have made my life better. In most instances, I have only become aware of these products because these businesses have spent money on ad campaigns.
That could have been a valid argument in 1970.
Today we have the internet. Instead of advertising it's not perfectly possible and easy to have other means of discoverability:
a) professional product reviews - a review site visit or Google search away
b) actual user reviews -- an aggregator site or Google search away
c) the product makers marketing material on their own website
d) blogs from people using the product
e) forums with people exchanging advice/complaints about the product
f) videos of people unboxing, using, showcasing, etc the product
g) the specs of the product, product manual, photos, etc online
h) online communities around a product category
i) for digital products, one could also try a trial/time limited/shortened /watermarked version of them
j) for products we encounter physically on some shop's shelves and want to know more about them, a quick Google search or QR Code can take us to the product page (and/or all of the above)
Unlike advertisement, none of these give an unfair lead to the maker than can spend more campaign money.
What's best, most of these add informational value (like scores, real world complaints, professional reviewing, etc) that ads, by definition, don't have.
We literally have more ways than ever to discover products, and to find the best products. Advertising is just random producers (random quality wise: just the company with the bigger pockets) shouting to make their wares stand out.
If any of these are on the internet, then people there will be pixel trackers, and people are going to measure the distinct number of impressions. I don't think this is a bad thing.
If we stretch the notion of advertising to mean "anything that can bring something to one's attention", then yes.
In that case I'm making explicit that by "advertising" in my first comment I referred not to these things, but to what's colloquially referred to as "advertising" -- namely paid tv ads, paid banners, sponsored posts on Facebook, and so on.
Not user forums, not legitimate reviews etc.
>If any of these are on the internet, then people there will be pixel trackers, and people are going to measure the distinct number of impressions. I don't think this is a bad thing
Well, I don't think "measuring the distinct number of impressions" in those kind of websites is a bad thing either.
What I said I consider bad is advertisements, that is getting money from a business for pitching THEIR message (as opposed to objective facts or a reviewer's/user's subjective review), selling your users' private info to them or using it to target them with ads, etc.
Let's imagine for a moment that it was made illegal for a content producer or social website etc to take money, in any kind of form, directly or indirectly, from any product maker, or anyone selling something (that is, no selling ads themselves, and no being paid to show ads).
What would remain on the web to discover products would be all the above I've described.
Instagram would have died an early death if you had to pay for it, and hiding certain features behind a pay wall would alienate 90% of the users.
I honestly don't think that would be a loss for humanity.
That would be a bonus.
>hiding certain features behind a pay wall would alienate 90% of the users
Only before they have conditioned differently from an industry that has been legally allowed to trade private information for ad money.