[opinali]

You speak of "free market" but we're not in the 18th century anymore; advertising is a foundation of modern capitalism, as much as (for example) banks and the whole financial system. The economy is full of "overheads" that you can hate if you only look at their downsides: when you buy some product you are also paying baked-in fees for credit card processing, subsidies for agriculture or fuel used in transportation, and many other things. Yet we put up with the banks, taxes, government regulations, and yes advertising too, because all these things have a net positive effect. Speaking of banks for example, we all hate banks but let's be honest and tell me if you could hope to buy a house without a loan: most people would need to first save money for decades, which very few people have the discipline to do, or the resources to do as they simultaneously have to pay rent. So the mortgage system is clearly better, it enabled way more people to afford buying houses and in time this improves the market for everybody via economies of scale etc. (well, for 99% of us anyway).