What?? If there ever was proof that HN is completely clueless about reality not empathetic of their fellow humans. Ads are not brainwashing.
The simple answer is that the real disconnect is thinking that since someone comments on HN, he is some kind of a mythical creature.
I am a middle aged man from Italy that saw mobile phones birth when was 20 already.
Don't assume that your experience is my experience.
Nobody I know closely knows what HN is, they ask me what phone to buy or which laptop, because I've always been the "techie" of the family/group of friends and because they care about not wasting their money but can't navigate the bullshit they see in the ads.
I guess that "blast past fast" or "do what you can" don't really say anything about the device true capabilities and why one should spend their money to buy it.
unless the reason is "I will buy whatever rich people buy" or "I like the colour of this one"
Of course the iPhone ads work, because they don't promote the phone, they sell a way of life, a lifestyle, their target is the "cool kids" that want to be "content creators" and that appeals to their desire to be part of what is fashionable among their peers, but that's exactly what brainwashing is.
Ads is brainwashing and it's scientifically weaponized against the reference target.
repetita iuvant: they don't promote the product, they exploit your sentiments, desires, fears, whatever works, to make you buy the product. But are actually a bunch of lies.
I don't disagree, but there are a few points that I see differently.
First of all, I think that what you're looking for is promotion, that is based on someone or some entity promoting your products and services, putting their face on it and leveraging their reputation of connoisseur of the matter at hand. It's based on trust and works best especially for tech products
Nobody buy smartphones based on adv, well except iPhone users that buy the brand iPhone - that could be seen as a confirmation of the trust based promotion, they trust Apple -, people watch reviews on YouTube channels that they trust.
Advertising is low effort. it's usually someone writing a script for you, pretending to be you, that it is the company that is talking directly to you, but it's in fact an agency that wrote a claim and a story to tell, to actually sell, not promote, the service or product in question by exploiting your feelings.
Secondly, I don't believe that advertising made laptops affordable, research did.
Super computers still cost millions and are an order or two of magnitude more powerful than you regular laptop of today.