I'd feel bad if advertising law wasn't a joke, and ads weren't basically an aggressive waste of time/money as a result.

Like man, I always hear "so many people make their living on this" but uh, maybe if false advertising law is practically unenforced and most ads are practically usually lies pushed by the already established winners in their industry...

Which it certainly seems to be, then. I find it hard to feel too bad, especially when people in the advertising business are probably not going to end up street beggars if things suddenly changed.

edit: although that "makes a living" argument may go wayside a little with the inevitable AI-generated, focus-group tested future we'll be living in. Hmm.

Do you feel bad when you don't read every marketing junk mail you receive?

I consider the ads to be part of an unwritten contract. I get free content, they get to throw ads at me. Junk mail is not a part of that contract.

No, but "Incredibe narcissism" might be what you and the GP suffer from.

Truth

I'd call it marketing.