[tremon]

It wasn't my intention to conflate, but I do consider advertising based on emotional appeal as harmful to society. I have no issues with content-based advertising, but that's not the norm in my experience.

I know that may very well be because of selection bias, in that the less egregious forms of advertising don't register with me (oh the ironing). For example, I actively search for reviews when buying new hardware. But the sad state of affairs is that it's very hard to find quality information between all the content-free fluff even though both are produced in the name of "advertising".

I disagree with your latter assertion though, that "consumption is the economy". To me, that's like saying "TV is society" or "the president is politics". The economy is much bigger than consumption, and I did not suggest that less advertising would lead to less consumption. At least that's what I meant with zero-sum game: it would just lead to different consumption.