[bradyo]

"Filling business needs" is also not an objectively useful thing. There are many businesses I would prefer not advertise (e.g. cigarette and gun companies) and many more industries that are nearly zero-sum (and thus advertising just moves a fixed pool of money around). I'm not sure where this idea that growth for the sake of growth is inherently good came from. In fact, we've demonstrated many ways it's harmful.

[manigandham]

Because the human population grows, so concepts such as societies and economies follow. It's that simple. You can run a small business that remains at a steady state but you still need constant customers to remain viable, and even if every company stayed small there would be new ones started, so growth is inherent.

Marketing spend is a proportion of GDP so it'll scale along with it, and is thus not zero-sum. As for regulation, that is needed in the industry and why we have limits on certain categories.