[rpdillon]

I think they are both true, but the second is worded differently than I would.

I think ads can work, but don't in many cases (based on recent stories that cancelling certain kinds of ad spend has no effect on outcomes). In some cases, like Uber advertising to get users, this seems entirely plausible.

So I largely think ads themselves are kind of harmless. But ad-backed business models are dangerous, because they optimize for "engagement", which tends to promote content that is divisive over more thoughtful, nuanced content. Sadly, it also seems to require gathering huge amounts of information about users in a centralized spot, which seems risky for a variety of reasons.

The whole thing reminds me of a call I got about 10 years ago to participate in a survey about smoking, and one of the questions they asked was "Do you believe nicotine causes cancer?" I paused because my understanding is that nicotine itself doesn't cause cancer, but the common delivery mechanisms at the time (smoking, dipping) do increase the risk of cancer. They forced me to answer yes/no, so I said "no", but obviously a decade later, I still remember it. Do ads cause harm? Probably not much, taken on their own. But everything _around_ them seems to.