Obviously you pay in other ways. When Tesco have an advert, they have to charge more to pay for that advert. The money still comes from me, the person shopping at Tesco.
You seem to forget the actual function of adverts, an advert gets you more customers so they make more money as a result than they had spent on the advert. If running ads was a net loss no one would do it.
Ads have a function, but they don't produce anything. They either divert customers from a competing business, or try to convince people to purchase something they so far haven't.
Instances where they provide useful information are comparably rare - with the exception of notifying people of a new business or kind of product, the yellow pages, word of mouth, or a search engine are much better, from a consumer's point of view.
With how information-sparse most ads are, it's hard to see them as anything but a drain on society, economically and socially.
In the prisoner's dilemma, it's also in the individual's best interest to betray the others, despite ultimately that leading to a worse outcome for everyone.
Yes but I'm addressing the OC as he specifically says that they have to charge more as if they're recouping losses. I'm trying to make the case that no losses are actually being made.
I'm saying isostatic may still be right, even with your objection.
Everyone can be having losses due to advertising (and be forced to charge more), despite advertising still being profitable for any particular business, compared to not advertising.
Tesco spend say 2% to try to get people to spend money there rather than ASDA.
ASDA spend 2% to try to get people to spend there rather than Tesco
Net result - both stores have no change in customer numbers, but an increase in overheads. Therefore they have to charge the customer more to make the same profit.