Yeah, it's even got a name: shopping.
So, for direct to consumer companies who only ship online, SEO?
Here's the thing: ads can be useful.
Awhile back I got a, highly targeted, ad for high protein sugar free cereal. That's awesome! I am 100% the target audience for that product, and until I saw that ad I had no clue it existed! To find a product like that I'd have to search for it, but I would never search for an entire new category of product that I didn't know about.
Same thing for the fitness app I am using (BodBot, it is amazing!). I am quite literally healthier right now because of a targeted advertisement.
Was I aware of fitness apps before then? Sure. But the ad for BodBot was informative about what features differentiated it from the literally hundreds, if not thousands, of other competing apps.
Do most ads suck? Sure. Should ads be highly invasive? Nope. But interest tracking and basic targeting actually help me find products and services that I want to buy!
Facebook in particular, for all the things wrong with it (long list!) has some amazingly relevant ads that inform me of products that I never knew about.
Those who want to shop know where to go. Those who don't, know where to avoid.
Perhaps there is a way we can both enjoy the internet in our preferred ways. Perhaps not, I don't know.
Or do you have infinite time to go browse every single store in your city on the odd chance that you'll see something you want?
I get the point you're making, but I hope you realize you're just backpedaling from your original "no advertisements ever!" statement.
I believe in giving people better control over how they receive ads (I personally run an ad blocker in my browsers and a Pi Hole on my network), but you position that there should be no advertising at all, and that all ads are unethical is just silly, and you're proving that point yourself here..
The false dichotomy you pose is ridiculous. People seek out information on what to buy all the time. But when I am listening to music, watching television or film, or reading a fucking news article, that is not the time I want to be given that information. It is unsolicited and I don't care about it.
People seek out information on what to buy because at some point they found out about it via (perhaps indirectly) the provider's promotional efforts (i.e. advertising).
We can certainly talk about the appropriateness of when an where to advertise, but that's a very different topic than your ALL ADS ARE UNETHICAL screeds that you've posted in like a dozen threads on this topic from 2 different accounts..
Never mind continuing to believe that somehow those of us who engage with advertising are lying to ourselves or somehow less in control of things than you?
Now who's spinning a web..
How do you propose that companies should promote their products and services, if not through advertising?
Are you somehow suggesting that they should just sit there and hope that people who have never heard of their product independently decide they happen to want or need that product and seek it out, unprompted?
You say "people part with their money for things they wouldn't think they needed, Our economy can't handle this kind of reckless consumerism anymore": Surely you don't think you speak for everyone?
You certainly don't speak for me.
I am not some blind sheep who is suckered into buying things I don't need. I am a grown adult who can make informed decisions with my money, including sometimes buying frivolous or unnecessary things.
I hate these arguments that assume everyone is stupid except for the person making the argument. It feels like there's some weird savior complex at work.
People have free will and are allowed to spend their money as they wish, and I think YOU are the cynical one if you think otherwise..