Google "Ballpoint pen" and you get a whole top row of sponsored links trying to sell ballpoint pens to me.
But sure, ballpoint pens aren't advertised on prime-time TV like products sold to 20-something trying to get an edge on the dating life (deodorant, hairspray etc.). That's an especially lucrative market, but not the target audience of most products.
> Macro-economically speaking, is this a company or industry that should keep on growing? The point of capitalism was supposed to be that there was competition in R&D[...]
One of the main points of capitalism is to decentralize the decision making about what's worthwhile economic activity to a bunch of uncoerced individual decisions.
Does that result in a bunch of money being spent on "pointless" products? Sure, but who's to say what's so important that everyone should do without it?
If your deodorant has some new unique property, etc, then it makes sense to advertise that. And I remember deodorants that did advertise they were careful on the skin, or didn't stain your shirt, were "invisible", longer-lasting, etc.
But if deodorant development has reached a point of stagnation, where no new deodorant tech is being invented and all deodorants are essentially the same, then we're in an interesting economic arrangement.
Macro-economically speaking, is this a company or industry that should keep on growing? The point of capitalism was supposed to be that there was competition in R&D (which brought about progress) and margins (which brought about availability through affordability) and eventually things like the ballpoint pen came to be: ubiquitous products that are extremely cheap and effective at what they do.
You don't see advertisements for the ballpoint pen any more: it's period of R&D and cheapening are long past. The industry is mature, it's done developing and is now producing a steady supply of ballpoint pens for a steady number of employees making a living off of it.
It's just companies today seem addicted to unbound growth and have discovered that R&D and margins aside, they can use advertising to sell more of anything by meddling with emotions.