- Billboards. You cannot possibly keep these out of your peripheral (or center of) vision while driving without endangering everyone else on the road. - Mailed advertisements. You have to check your mail, for example, for legal summons, that you are required by law to respond to. - Public transit (lest I be auto-shamed). You cannot, where I am, even look toward where a train arrives, without seeing ads.
To remediate just these three advertising venues, you have to drive and board public transit with your eyes closed and not check your mail. These aren’t even activities I’d consider voluntary - people need to get to work to support themselves, and check their mail for legal purposes. Unless your argument is that we all make choices to participate in our sovereign nation’s legal structure and to have jobs that require leaving the home (not everyone can work in a cushy remote role).
For instance, I have no interest in receiving snail-mail ads for credit cards. I am happy with the ones that I have right now, and regularly research on my own via trusted third parties to see if any are available which would be of interest to me. Still, I am unable to stop receiving mail advertising credit cards to me. There is not even recourse I can take because states have fallen for the same “connecting producers to consumers” argument as above, in the most broad sense, where every human is a potentially interested consumer for every single product.
The business is worse off (because they pay to advertise to me, and I will not get one of their credit cards), I am worse off (because I am upset I receive this mail), the planet is worse off (deforestation), others are worse off (perhaps the time spent by postal workers delivering me junk mail could improve service to others or reduce costs).
So while I agree that advertising is not inherently manipulative, when the audience is captive and uninterested, it becomes manipulation.