Case in point: we used to say all the same things GP said about advertising about businesses that used child labor. Now there are far, far fewer of them.

Exactly. Just saying "we're gonna always have 7 day work weeks with children dieing in factories and unsafe conditions!!" Is exactly the kind of catastrophising and attitude that gives those in power continued power.

Fight back. Organise. Get shit done in real life

Human Attentiom needs to be treated as a scarce finite resource. Otherwise they have many different ways to overfish.

How to make that happen is the trillion $$$ question.

Moloch problems are rarely solved by individual actions against the issue. That is, because they are legal and profitable, it's going to be very difficult to make a living in the radius of an industry that does ads that does not use these tactics. At the end of the day we need to eat. Corporations that use these crappy methods are apt to grow larger and richer than moral ones, making it doubly difficult to make that living.

Hence the best call of action is to push for industry regulation forcing a level market.