That's not a point in favor of advertising, it's a point for the lack of general education around maintenance or mechanical devices among the population. Using pressurized air and soapy water to find leaks in things is a well known technique among those who regularly have to find leaks in things.

I'm sure there was a point in the past where something like this would have been taught in school in a classroom that had all kinds of tools and machinery in it.

I think that's hanging onto the example the OP gave a little too closely.

I found out about the company I've bought several sets of sheets from because they were a podcast sponsor, I happened to need sheets, and I liked their designs more than other ones I was seeing at comparable prices. If I hadn't heard that ad, would I have still found sheets I liked? Maybe! But is that really a convincing moral argument against those ads?

That’s the thing, there’s no line between what’s an ad and what’s just informational. Somewhere between “Joe’s Sheet Emporium down on Main sells Egyptian cotton sheets” and psychologist-engineered gambling ads there’sa boundary that’s crossed, but I don’t know how you can quantify that, but I know the latter end of the spectrum is wrong. Unfortunately it’s kind of a matter of “I’ll know it when I see it”.

I'm thinking of the classified ads that used to be in the back of gaming magazines. There would be pages of small print only black and white listings of everything from miniatures to game supplements that you could purchase by mailing the given address. You had to go looking for them.

In the front of the Mag between the articles you would have full page colour ads, some with skimpily dressed women selling boxed games, computer games etc.

In some of the mags, some of the articles were reviews of products, some of these reviews were obviously promotions, very much trying to sell the product. Very few were critical of the product under review.

There is a continuum in advertising from simple "this product exists" to "Will change your life". Far to many of the adverts we see today tend to the targeted "change your life" category.

Add to that that many of the ads on the internet have there own tracking built in that allows your existence to become a product that is sold without your knowledge or consent and you have a situation that has a bunch of moral questions to answer.

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I took auto shop in high school.