> but if you're into maximizing revenue
In the space of ideas, there is a way for advertisement to exist without revenue. Even without money!
> manipulating people's self-image into thinking they're not good enough, not beautiful enough, not wealthy enough
You can do all of that _without_ advertising.
I want to double-emphasize this. Most advertising sucks, but the effect it has on people is not unique to advertising. Given your five senses, you are being consistently and constantly blasted with information people want to put in front of you in the hopes of effecting your future behavior in a way that makes you think that you’ve talked yourself into it.
But given a non-intrusive ad that isn’t trying to also surveil you and isn’t making demands on your attention, they can be informative. The problem is that non-intrusive ads that don’t make demands on your time and attention don’t support advertising-reliant companies with market caps as big as TV broadcasters, and if you want to also be as big as Google or Facebook, you also need the surveillance aspect of it, so if we ever get our shit together as a society and do something about that and they haven’t diversified their revenue streams sufficiently, they’re in for a very bad time.
That knife you bought because it looked cool, not the sharpest or most suited for your tasks. Cheerios aren’t really good for your heart. Dentists don’t universally recommend your flavored grain-infused fluoride paste.
It’s legalized lying where high end marketing companies are so good at it you might as well not try with a small budget. It’s not just bad from any angle, it’s also entrenched.
Well, yes, that's it exactly. The problem is not advertising, it's trying to maximize revenue. That is the virus that is killing our world.
Unfortunately, social media is much more effective at ruining people's self-image and happiness than advertisers could ever dream to be