From violations of privacy, to the mainpulation or even maliciousness at its core, I think marketing at it’s current state is poison to society. But I also think it might be a necessary evil. What would be a good alternative implementation of advertising look like? Or do we even need it? If the former, how would advertising look in a non-capitalist society?
I’ll just state some pros and cons of one hypothetical scenario in which there are virtually no advertisements. What defines an advertisement exactly may be up to date but I’ll go with what I think.
Pros: Much more quiet with much less noise. Relations and connections and groups would be much tighter. There would still be heated discourse but it might be less polarized.
Cons: It would be harder to connect with people and services from farther away, because you mostly couldn’t hear about them.