[wpietri]

And tell me again the point of promoting a special? It's to manipulate people into becoming regular customers of restaurant A over restaurant B. Even the notion of specials has mainly become a promotional device; the tail of advertising has now wags the dog of cooking.

I like small business owners. And I get the necessity of advertising in today's markets. It's an arms race; if your competitors advertise, you generally have to do so as well. People being people, I'm also provisionally ok with some modest level of manipulation. But let's be real: advertising is mostly calculated manipulation of other people for your own profit.