It makes the system very inefficient, don't twist my words, you're talking about something else. And this is not about intelligence, I'm not saying people make stupid choices. This is a question of perverse marketing incentives.
A slaughterhouse for example is very efficient at processing animals from living beings into mass produced meat, however you want to feel about the ethics of that.
and you're still missing the point. I'm not saying that marketing has no effect on people (on the contrary, that's the problem, and it affects me too). my point is about the absurdity of basing our social organization on this. marketing only has perverse motivations, then you see the effects on people. tobacco is the classic example. this is an inefficiency of the system.