[TeMPOraL]

Brick&mortar stores, Consumer Reports, magazines[0], product catalogs, trade shows, yellow books, discussion groups, word of mouth. Basically, everything that's pull (vs. push) and limits itself to providing information about products and problems they solve (vs. playing on your emotions, or delivering sales tactics).

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[0] - See this subthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21348886.

[friendlybus]

I agree with the dislike for over-extended advertising techniques online. But those are all ads, as such don't really answer my challenge to the parent poster. Ads on some fundamental level provide a service to the recipient.

[nitrogen]

I feel it's a bit disingenuous on the part of advertisers to claim that any commercial information source is an ad. This basically makes any discussion impossible because if everything is an ad then nothing is. It's a dirty trick of the ad industry.

did the creator of the X pay a third party to present X? is X an essential part of its context? is the recipient of X seeking X itself or something else?

[TeMPOraL]

Some ads provide a service to the recipient. Most ads, as exist today, provide a net disservice.

I don't think the parent poster meant absolutely all ads, just the vast majority of them. But in so far as they meant all ads, it's still a good point you shouldn't trust them - not even the product catalogs you yourself paid for. There's very little legal and social protection from the merchant lying to you, and all the business incentives to do so.