You're absolutely right, but we haven't even touched on the worst part of ads, which is how they utterly poison your brain with annoying jingles, annoying colors, and stupid catch-phrases, all psychologically engineered to get stuck in your head.

And let's not even go into how they prey on your fears and insecurities, or deceive you into thinking you need things that you actually don't. How they prey on vulnerable children, or the elderly, or brainwash small children into manipulating their parents against their best interests. Or how privacy has been shredded since the advent of behavioral tracking.

I'm not exaggerating at all when I say that advertising is one of the world's biggest psychological hazards. I would rather sit in an empty room with no stimulation whatsoever than let that poison into my brain.