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Comment on How com the ad industry make so much money?

Because they are funded by literally almost every other industry and business on the planet, small and large. They have established themselves as the critical and inescapable middleman between consumers and providers, not necessarily directly or exclusively but in every practical way possible and in such subtle ways that it’s not always obvious how much they actually control. They are the gatekeepers of all commerce, they control the information of even knowing what businesses exist and what they do and are the only way of finding them and are often the only way of finding a price too. All commerce flows through them, and so they inevitably take their cut of all that business. Few other industries are as widespread through the rest of the economy as advertising is, and none are able to establish effective monopolies as easily as advertising has.

Oil comes close, but even oil is ultimately a commodity that can be take from or moved around from place to place for the right price. It doesn’t separate businesses from their consumers the way advertising does. A business or consumer can find a different source for oil – but they have to use information to do that. And the advertising industry controls most of the information.

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blarghly@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
This sounds like a weird conspiracy theory. Communicating with potential customers that your product exists and is good isn’t some concept that the advertising industry has somehow wrested from the hands of good hardworking people in return for their wages. It’s what marketing and advertising IS. It’s like saying the cheeseburger industry controls our access to cheeseburgers - like, kinda. But also, that’s kind of definitionally true. You can, of course, raise and slaughter your own cow to subvert the cheeseburger industry. And you can hand out fliers you made yourself advertising your business on the streetcorner. But it is a lot less work, and you’ll probably get a better product, if you outsource the work to a specialist

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- cecilkorik@lemmy.ca ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I don’t know how that’s a conspiracy. Like you suggest, it’s basically tautological, that’s what advertising/marketing IS by definition. Whether you think that’s a bad thing or not (I do in almost all of its current forms) is an entirely different question and a matter of opinion, and while I might be guilty of letting that opinion leak into my commentary I also don’t see a lot of facts we actually seem to disagree on, so I’m not really sure what else there is to discuss. I don’t think it would be productive to get into the weeds of why I think that’s such a bad thing, it’s not really relevant to the question that was asked. I just thought understanding the profit motives that make the advertising industry so lucrative would probably be pretty useful to appreciate why the industry is the way it is.
  
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  - blarghly@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I’m just saying
    
    They have established themselves as the critical and inescapable middleman between consumers and providers, not necessarily directly or exclusively but in every practical way possible and in such subtle ways that it’s not always obvious how much they actually control.
    
    You can hear the creepy piano music when you read this
    
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