First, I don't agree that lobbying is a good thing, in general. It's made our democracy more of a plutocracy<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index>. Citizen's united in 2010 really hurt us here.
'When a nonprofit group pays for political activities, I could see why someone might refer to it all as "lobbying"'
--I think your confused here as trade groups are NOT non-profit groups. Non- profits can't do much lobbying<https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/lobbying>
Calling a Comcast lobbyist for information, is like me asking a car sales person, what car I should get. He will undoubtedly point to industry paid for studies that, for obvious reason's should be considered suspect at best
1. There are experts that aren't employed by companies or trade groups. 2. A success story for unbiased information has been the CBO. It's not perfect, but from everything I've read, it's done better than either party in it's predictions, overall. We should have more like it, for research, because that's what's needed and rely on other less biased experts.