Not really. Advertising results in extreme market inefficiencies through the game theory playing out (if you don't advertise as a company, you lose out to companies that do). It's the massive sink of the modern economy, there's nearly no sector unaffected by it. If advertising was banned (not that it's very easy) vast majority of issues associated with capitalism wouldn't even exist and everybody would be wealthier.
This is all putting aside the fact that %99.9 of all advertising works by exploiting the familiarity circuit in the human brain. The effects of advertising are, by definition, not voluntary. See Ads just work, no matter what you think: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18399633
If the purpose of %99.9 of advertising was not exploiting the familiarity circuit and was instead to make you aware of a product you didn't know about before, there wouldn't be a single ad of Coca-Cola, since everybody on the planet knows about it already.
Also, my mom literally buys whatever she sees playing on YouTube ads that week. I know because I see those ads too. You'd be surprised how many people are going through life with undiagnosed or untreated ADHD and how many further lack cognitive agency.
Almost all products we use today were marketed to us in one way or another using advertisements. Without ads, we would expect a very slow diffusion of information and wait tediously for word of mouth to spread and get access to good products.
Web search is and always was perfectly suited to find the product you need, as are the multitude of e-commerce websites active in any country.
Searching does not require advertising or word of mouth. Word of mouth is not inefficient either in a world with internet, the person telling you about a product likely saw it and purchased it online already.
Yeah, and then maybe certain companies could optimize their sites to show up higher on the list of pages, and then maybe some companies can pay other companies for such expertise, and then maybe other companies can pay the search engine directly to show up higher, what an idea right?
The similarity between advertising and cancer are striking, see the post Advertising is a cancer on society: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20577142
This is all putting aside the fact that %99.9 of all advertising works by exploiting the familiarity circuit in the human brain. The effects of advertising are, by definition, not voluntary. See Ads just work, no matter what you think: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18399633
If the purpose of %99.9 of advertising was not exploiting the familiarity circuit and was instead to make you aware of a product you didn't know about before, there wouldn't be a single ad of Coca-Cola, since everybody on the planet knows about it already.
Also, my mom literally buys whatever she sees playing on YouTube ads that week. I know because I see those ads too. You'd be surprised how many people are going through life with undiagnosed or untreated ADHD and how many further lack cognitive agency.