Implying even having the budget for prolific advertising isn't a signal that something is already on the value extraction slide.

By talking to their neighbors? By walking past it?

What are you talking about??

The cafe putting up a sign, hours, and a menu in the window are forms of advertising. Based on your other comment, I suspect you are painting with a brush of "all" when you mean digital advertising or targeted digital advertising.

I think if you extend it to be that broad, then sure, those specific examples are fine and exempt from my above statement.

But offline advertising generally isn't exempt. Screw billboards cluttering up cities. Screw flyers cluttering up my mailbox. Screw print ads cluttering up magazines.

It's all an assault on the senses in service of extraction. It's a non-consensual invasion of the mind.

While we are approaching this with different modes, we broadly agree that advertising is cognitive pollution.

I don't think I've ever seen an advert for a cafe and then gone to that cafe. I guess the listings on Google maps might be counted as an ad, but I've ended up adding plenty of cafe's to maps after visiting so I don't know if those entries are added by the businesses or by customers.

In the pure economics/marketing sense, a Google Maps listing is an advertisement.

I expect for most people that these forms of advertising - directory listings, basic notifications, etc. - aren't a level of cognitive pollution that they notice vs. overly bright billboards, banner ads, search injects, or LLM-injected marginally relevant sources.

Yes, I see what you're getting at, and those aren't really what I take issue with.

I think generally, the issue is around consent and who initiates the information transfer. If I'm actively looking for something, a listing of options is useful. If I look at a shop window, I am actively looking to see what the shop is selling.

It's the non-consensual invasion of my mental space I take issue with. It's like somebody violently shaking you going "BUY BUY BUY".