[philh]

> getting paid to lie (which is, fundamentally, what advertising is).

Not fundamentally. A lot of advertising may be well be outright lying, or close enough as makes no difference.

But... I used to go by a shop named "Cards Galore", it had its name in reasonably sized letters hanging over the sidewalk, and then when I wanted to buy a card I knew where I could get one. Nothing lying about that. I think there's a lot of advertising which is like that.

Something weaker might be true, like "large-scale advertising will inevitably lead to large-scale lying". But "advertising is fundamentally lying" is not true.

[kelnos]

While there's a good amount of advertising that's truthful, I think it's safe to label all (or at least nearly all) advertising as emotional manipulation, and on those grounds I try to avoid advertising.

Companies toying with my psychology in order to get me to buy something from them... well, that doesn't sit well with me.

[kerkeslager]

I don't really consider labeling a business to be advertising, though. That's like if I go to Wikipedia and see the Wikipedia logo--it's just showing me where I am.

Internet advertising is pretty much all lying. Even when what an ad says is factual, they're not telling you the whole truth, they're telling you a partial truth that leaves out pieces of information which they know would be relevant to you--that's a lie because their intent is to deceive you.

And by the way, I do get it: in a lot of businesses you have to advertise because your competitors are advertising. Advertising is a blight on society that infects everyone: opting out of advertising isn't a viable option without major sacrifice. I'd like to see a future where we all agree to stop advertising and rely on consumer-reports-style reviewers to obtain unbiased product information.

[20after4]

Reviews are also advertising. They are usually, if not always, biased.