> They want them because of a trend and advertising

>>Yes. Humans are not rational economic actors. Humans are social creatures that can be manipulated through social engineering. That is my point. Holding a gun to a person's head is the most blunt and crude form of manipulation and also happens to be illegal. Modern advertising is a lot more refined than that.

Agreed

> It is profitable because it what the consumer wants.

>>If you mean "it's profitable because it sells", then that is nearly tautological and I have no idea why you'd feel like you'd have to say that. What I assumed you meant was what people usually mean, i.e. "it is profitable because it fulfills a pre-existing need consumers wish to satisfy".

My point is closer to what you called tautological, and my point is that it is not accurate to attribute choice, agency, or control to the consumer, while attributing full agency, control, and responsibility to seller. If you want to make a critical judgement about corporations selling crap for profit, at a minimum, you have to be open to a critical judgement about consumers wanting crap. There is a duality to it and feedback loop. If people weren't hungry to buy prestige, sex appeal, or fleeting distractions from their problems, crap wouldnt sell, and advertising for it wouldnt work.

Restated, what I object to is holding individual human desires and preference as flawless or perfect, and refusing to acknowledge the causal role it plays in what products are produced and profitable.

You can't simultaneously hold that corporations are exploiting a flaw in consumer psychology without admitting that consumers have a psychological flaw.

>The reason everyone's buying these overpriced coffee mugs is not that they need coffee mugs, it's that they have an induced desire for what that specific brand of coffee mugs represents....Either you're the one perfectly rational human who is more immune to social cues than the most autistic introvert, or you've just discovered that you're not part of the target audience of fancy fashion lifestyle coffee mugs. There is more than one consumer identity.

The fact that different target markets exist is itself evidence that differences exist in consumer desire and response to advertising. People have different levels of response to advertising, and different response to different kinds. I dont claim to be immune to it, but I do think that people can be more or less susceptible, and personally strive to align my consumption with realistic long term self interest.

I think that individuals play a role in commodification and consumerist behavior, and this can be reduced by thought, introspection, and cultural shifts. If there is a "solution", I dont think it is a world where individuals are lusting for crap that provides distraction or short-term satisfaction, and corporate restraint is only thing that keeps it from being produced.

Each of your core claims have corollaries:

>1. It is more profitable to induce a perceived need than to find a pre-existing need.

I dont know if I agree. The world has a lot of real big and expensive problems. Housing, healthcare, human development, sustainability. There is a lot of money to be made if individuals see these as a priority.

>2. It is more profitable to only fulfill a need temporarily so you can sell to the same consumers multiple times.

Customers prefer cheap short term solutions to more expensive or painful long term solutions. Long term solutions are expensive. See #1

>3. It is more profitable to fulfill a need inadequately so consumers don't stop looking for a new way to fulfill the need after the purchase.

Buy it for life products exist, and most dont buy them, for various reasons. Somehow advertising is less effective.