[Ivoirians]

People don't act against their self-interest unless deceived. There are misleading ads that are immoral like "payday loans can get you out of debt", but the vast majority of ads (that I see) are informational, like "store X is having a sale". That's just giving me information to make a decision about ("$N is a reasonable amount for me to spend on this thing I didn't previously want").

I could make a similarly wrong blanket statement about news articles. "The news is fundamentally about misleading you into believing something against your interest". I could make a blanket statement about conversations between two people. "Listening to someone talk is letting them manipulate your brain into thinking something it wouldn't without this prodding". There are deceptive ads, news articles, and people, but you don't have a good moral argument against all ads, news articles, or people.

[thaumasiotes]

> People don't act against their self-interest unless deceived.

They can also be stupid.