Although I have an ad blocker on my browser some ads still sneak through and it bugs the hell out of me, but that's the price I pay for "free" services. Advertising revenue drives the internet, and we are the product being sold.
There was an old saw about advertising, that it is designed to sell people products that they don't need, they can't afford, to impress people that don't care. I can't think of any recent purchases of mine that were influenced by advertising, but maybe that's how it works. I'm not aware of it, but deep in my subconscious there's a blinking message and a klaxon horn with the command to "Buy that! Buy that!" I have probably succumbed, without knowing it.
We've been duped by advertising all our lives. Is there any product that truly lived up to the advertised claims? Offhand, I can't think of any and have often experienced buyer's remorse. There were a few things I ordered when I was a kid, usually from the back of a cereal box (Battle Creek, Michigan must have been a major commercial hub) or something in a comic book and I always felt let down, with a feeling of great disappointment. I paid a quarter for that? At least I never ordered any Sea Monkeys.
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Uncle Ken nails it (again!) with his comment about automation being the biggest threat to jobs. We have forgotten what happened to John Henry, that steel driving man. And what happens when all the consumers have everything they need or can't afford to consume any more? The center cannot hold, and we may be one of the last generations to have lived through the "good times." The first sign of the collapse is Uncle Ken's awareness of the Nicki Minaj butt controversy. Now I have to look it up, and climb aboard the handbasket to hell.
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