Only for modern definitions of advertising, mind you, which are all about dark patterns and invasive marketing, rather than putting a descrption of your product out there that can be searched by interested parties looking to buy a product like yours.

There were times were advertising was useful and desirable, e.g. Small Ads pages.

There was also a time when ads were a single unintrusive scrolling line, curated by the website owner so as to be relevant to their audience. Those were fine.

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grafmax 2 days ago | parent [-]

And yet it’s the profit motive that has driven the shift to widespread usage of dark patterns and invasive marketing.

	▲	tpoacher a day ago \| parent [-]
		We're not disagreeing, but in the sense that the language we use is important, I would not say it's the profit motive, but uncontrolled greed, that has driven this shift. Reasonable profit is necessary. Something needs to put food on the table, both for your own family and that of your workers. What you don't need is a 3 million dollar jet on the table at the expense of both your workers and your customers.