I've thought about this quite a while, and after I'm done with the rage against all advertising I'm left with "wait, if there's no advertising, how are new companies going to let the world know they exist?".
I really hate the world as is, polluted with meaningless, over-optimized advertisement, but at the same time I also think that "no advertisement" is definitely not the answer.
As with most things, I think we have to find a good balance. Maybe a good way to start would be for governments to set (harsher) limits to advertisement. Allowing less seconds of ads per each hour of content, forbidding print ads in certain areas, etc etc.
"ABSTRACT. The vast amount of product information available to consumers through online
search renders most advertising obsolete as a tool for conveying product information. Advertising remains useful to firms only as a tool for persuading consumers to purchase advertised products. In the mid-twentieth century, courts applying the antitrust laws held that such persuasive
advertising is anticompetitive and harmful to consumers, but the Federal Trade Commission
(FTC) was unable to pursue an antitrust campaign against persuasive advertising for fear of depriving consumers of advertising's information value. Now that the information function of most
advertising is obsolete, the FTC should renew its campaign against persuasive advertising by
treating all advertising beyond the minimum required to ensure that product information is
available to online searchers as monopolization in violation of section 2 of the Sherman Act."
I really hate the world as is, polluted with meaningless, over-optimized advertisement, but at the same time I also think that "no advertisement" is definitely not the answer.
As with most things, I think we have to find a good balance. Maybe a good way to start would be for governments to set (harsher) limits to advertisement. Allowing less seconds of ads per each hour of content, forbidding print ads in certain areas, etc etc.