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by Merovius
3961 days ago
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Your logic is flawed. Advertisers advertise to increase their share of the whole economy. Every single person could spend exactly the same amount of money and even on exactly the same kind of things as before and advertising would still make sense. I am not denying, that due to advertising we shift our buying habbits. But advertising is born out of competition, it is to take a share of the spending power of people away from other companies. Spending power is pretty much a constant (at least in regards to advertising, it increases as a function of the strength of the economy). Seriously, think about it for a second: If advertising stopped today, completely. Would you spend less money? I don't think so. |
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> if these costs are being borne evenly, then it's complete societal waste.
that is exactly what is happening. Advertising is the classical real world example for the prisoners dilemma. It is literally the reason, why game theory exists. Every company can chose to advertise (defect) or not advertise (cooperate). If no one advertises, everyone is better off. But that is not a stable equilibrium, so instead everyone is advertising, even though it incurs some cost on social wellfare.