[eevilspock]

Which do you think wins, low budget factually honest advertising or high budget advertising that builds consumer loyalty or craving using whatever psychological means necessary?

I'm pretty certain the latter wins far more often than the former, in which case advertising hurts healthy competition. You may in fact have the better or cheaper product, but the establish company has the huge advertising budget by virtue of being the established company. Advertising serves as a moat far more than it serves as a bridge.

So while the naive view is that advertising communicates the existence and benefits of products so that consumers can make informed choices, in reality it is more often and more successfully used to communicate lies and manipulation, and raise insurmountable barriers to new competition.

[savanaly]

>and raise insurmountable barriers to new competition.

Why do we assume that the dishonest and manipulative nature of advertising would be more effectively wielded by the companies already in the market than by new ones trying to break in to the market?

[qu4z-2]

Primarily 'cause they have larger budgets. And sure, a new entry into the market might innovate on advertisement instead of product, but is that what we want?

[saint_fiasco]

In this hypothetical, you have the superior product, so you would prefer to rely on honesty.

The alternative situation where everyone bullshits is one of the reasons people are using ad blockers.