There isn't a robust economics argument for advertising. We're dumping a bunch of economic resources (lost otherwise productive time) into an industry that serves to distort free markets.

There are claims of letting people know about products, or "driving consumer demand," but they fall apart as you dig deeper.

It's not clear how it ought to be regulated, but it ought to be regulated. It ought have been regulated a long, long time go, actually. When banner ads popped up on the Internet in the nineties was a much easier time than 2020, when we have trillion-dollar businesses pushing back.