I'm thinking aloud and obviously taking a negative purist view here, but does anyone else wonder, if in 20-30 years, if civilisation has actually advanced any, if we'll look back at ads in the same way we now seem to be treating tobacco, sugar, alchol etc. etc. ie a poison, but in this case of the mind rather than the body [1] [2]?

I mean all that mind bogglingly dark patterny/cynical gameplay we engage in everytime we watch one.
And there's also all the negative, misery inducing, pressure when you realise, even if you sold the house and spent it all on plastic surgery you wouldn't be anywhere near as attractive or thin as the size zero model they've just tried to use to sell you the gadget you probably don't need, that you probably can't afford that was likely made by some "exploited" person from resources that probably aren't sustainable and then shipped halfway round the world. And then you go and buy it anyway and hate yourself for being gullible and buying something you probably can't afford... just so you can support some guy who's just doing his job but secretly hates himself for engaging in a zero-sum game with the rest of mankind and persuading you to buy something you... every time he sits down at his desk so he can buy his kids new ipads for christmas when they'd arguably be better off without anyway [3].

Another nash equilibrium in a world crying out for socially optimal solutions [4] or just an another inevitable inefficiency of capitalism [5].

I mean what ever happened to the Just In Time philosophy. We've ran with it on the supply side so stuff is cheaper than it should be, but every day i get bombarded by tens of emails from companies investing a lot of effort in trying to kiddology me into buying stuff which i thankfully just filter away (as i do with the rest of it - ad-blockers, don't watch live tv or listen to radio stations with ads, don't buy into the whole sky pay for stuff and then also have to watch ads). It's almost like a stupid tax.

At the end of the day I'm just not going to buy your <unnecessary> thing so stop wasting my time/sanity/electricity/bandwidth and yours. It's not as though, for example, if i want to buy a new tent (which so far i've done about every 5 years) or do a canvas (probably twice a year) i can't just wait ten minutes for the next millets sale or photobox offer (i mean when does photobox not have a sale on for something they just keep increasing the base price of anyway). And anyway i'd probably be better going somewhere that had spent slightly less on their kiddology so their quality sucked less.

I entirely get why people do it, the "good" of the website/service/... i provide hopefully outweighs the "evil" of the mechanisms i go to try and support it, but if you didn't "need" the money, would anyone go anywhere near an ad-broker?

I can't help but think if we factored money out of this whole equation, this whole pyramid of snafu would collapse and we can move onto a slightly more healthy, enlightened society? Is this the best we can do? Would basic income help [6]? Or do i have to wait for likely societal collapse to a lower energy level to render this whole thing moot (see Tainter)?

</more ranty than i intended>

[1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/litost/15113770968/

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhjCrL40JIM

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGab38pKscw

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jILgxeNBK_8

[5] https://libcom.org/library/inefficiency-capitalism-brian-oli...

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income