[ippisl]

Does advertising provide a valuable service beyond monetizing other things? My guess is mostly, no.

In a world with search engines that know everything about you and can recommended great products and services for you, there's no need for wrong incentives in the form of money to be part of this recommendation process.

And regarding brand advertising : some marketing people say that advertising do offer people some psychological value that gets implanted in the product., which makes them enjoy the product more. For example the axe deodorant ads causes some people to wonder whether using axe did helps with attraction, which changed their internal experience.

The problem again with such claims is the perverse incentives that money play here, which we see in the effects of advertising on female body image.

Really the only case I think ads are usefull are in cases they are used by non profits or the states to achieve public goals, like anti smoking ads.