[chipotle_coyote]

There's just a lot of presumptions buried in statements like this that I have trouble getting past. What criteria do we use to establish a need is "real" once we get past life requirements? Do I need a better chair? A better keyboard? A more efficient car? A monthly rail pass? The criteria you and several other comments in this thread use seems to include "if you found out about it through an ad, it's not a real need," which is the original canonical definition of "begging the question."

[Zeklandia]

If nothing else in your life gave you the idea to buy something but an advertisement did, it's not your idea to buy the thing. I needed a new chair because the one I used to have gave me back pain. I went on Amazon to look for a replacement chair, and because I use an ad-blocker (uBlock Origin), I didn't see any advertisements for chairs (whether there are other features of Amazon that could count as advertising, like the Amazon's Choice branding is, sure, debatable but also besides the point). Instead, I saw a list of chairs with information about them. I looked through the list and found the one I thought would best suit me and bought it. Why did I buy it? Because I felt I needed it since I was concerned that my old chair might have caused back problems if I kept using it.

Since I bought the chair on Amazon, when I don't have an ad-blocker on, like on other people's computers, I can see Amazon showing me advertisements for other chairs. Why? They are trying to convince me, because I showed a willingness to buy chairs, that I need more chairs. There are all sorts of flashy listings showing off the neat gimmicks their chairs are capable of, all to convince customers like me that what we have isn't good enough.

They can't make money if they solved people's problems, so either they design things to break (like planned obsolescence) or they psychologically manipulate people into thinking they have problems they don't have and sell them the solution (InfoWars is this taken to the extreme).

There is a difference between putting information out there for people who want to find it and blasting information at them to get in someone's head and convince them they need to do something for your own benefit.