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There are ways to optimize access to this information. Trade shows that display new products. Mail-order catalogs for companies or industry groups. Companies would find a way to make information - not ads - available for interested people to peruse. The core difference would be "pull not push", i.e. people with a problem would go looking for solutions, and very little space to compete on product information - preventing runaway zero-sum games.

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Of course there are workarounds, but they are time consuming and therefore expensive, but also less efficient and reliable. It would be going back to the 80s, but even more locked in to physical outlets as gatekeepers. You're really just exchanging an inconvenience for a tyranny.

Trade shows and catalogs are forms of advertising.

Also, regarding "pull not push", people sometimes don't know there is a solution to their "problem" (where "problem" might not be a real problem, per se, but maybe simply not even knowing that a given option exists).

You can define anything as advertising if you try hard enough. That's not very helpful for trying to strike a balance, though.

Of the ads I see, if we exclude the drug ads that really should not be allowed, I'd say that an extremely small fraction are telling me about solutions I didn't already know existed. The "useful" case should not be so rare.

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