I don't know man. I just think somehow we'll manage. For example if a group of friends all feel a desperate need to find out about new products they could start a non-profit organization that will search out the new products and directories detective style. And public business directories exist in most places because they are required by law.

The deeper point is that pro-advertising people always frame it like advertising is something people want and that benefits them, but this is just a fig-leaf for the underlying ideology that businesses have the fundamental right to buy peoples' attention for money. The directories idea is mostly just a way to call this bluff, essentially saying "if people wanted to be advertised to they'd go out of their way to get it". Then the underlying ideology comes out.