[tenebrisalietum]

> What exactly is the waste?

Companies are less likely to overproduce unwanted goods when the known buyers and sellers are easily predicted and/or connected. This is environmentally beneficial, for one. My argument was that targeted advertising helps that.

> This seems a very generous and ad friendly interpretation that ignores other costs.

The question "where do we draw the line for X to be illegal because of bad effects Y" can't be the job of the advertising industry to determine, because advertisers are not scientists and are only incidentally any type of educator. There is no advertising industry for illegal products; if a product or quantity thereof is harmful enough it should be illegal and outside the scope of the industry.

> If you don't by my product I'll lobby for laws you don't like in your jurisdiction?

Not laws ... but let me clarify: Advertising is done through the same medium as entertainment. Therefore, advertising contributes to determining the fate of those mediums, as most media-based entertainment products don't survive when they aren't largely financially supported. Targeted advertising can allow more localized entertainment to exist, thereby preventing monoculture.