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This is an individualistic argument, but isn't the more compelling case for removing ads one from social good? Ads are a net negative to the consumer AND to the companies who have to pay for them. As someone who works in a marketing-adjacent field, it's worth noting that we still don't have good ways to tell if traditional advertising is actually effective at driving sales, and there's compelling evidence that its effect for many brands is near zero. Yet companies are compelled to have an ad spend in order to keep up with the competition. Side note: modern guerilla marketing (which is essentially word-of-mouth) is a different story, but I don't think that's actually what OP is complaining about, any more than OP would say reviews should be banned. On the flip side, the most heavily advertised products are generally the worst, or at least a subpar option, which is why the need so much advertising to begin with. As a result, naive consumers are bamboozled into buying worse products for higher prices (they have to cover the overhead of the ads after all).
In my view this resolves into a tragedy of the commons situation. Everyone would benefit if ads (or at least certain modalities) were banned, but each individual player is incentivized from taking that step. Hence we need the Leviathan to step in.
There's no point arguing about the social good of advertising in the abstract, without reference to the content that advertising supports and makes available. It's the kind of woolly-headed socialism that college students love to talk when tuition comes up.
The proposition being argued here is "People should not be allowed to consume content unless they have paid for it."
Well, ok, that's too harsh. Probably more like:
"People should not be allowed to choose to consume unwanted content in exchange for consuming content that they want."
Without advertising, Youtube and Twitter are only available on a subscription basis, OTA TV and Radio are limited to government or charities, and newspapers would fail completely.
Once you are talking about narrower restrictions on particular kinds of advertising, there's probably logic there. But capital-A Advertising can't be isolated from the empire built upon it.
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