• hglman@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      It also consumes human labor when people absorb the marketing. This is an externality not accounted for in the cost of marketing, it is large, and it makes resources unavailable for more productive tasks.

      • rchive@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Marketing is the distribution of information. Its value is not just a trick or something. You can argue we’re over valuing it, but it’s definitely extremely valuable.

        • hglman@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          I am saying the costs that are not accounted for, namely the effort spent by every not buying a product consuming an advertisement, is extremely high and outweighs the value of products sold. Moreover, there is no clear reason to think the persuasion of people in mass is good based just on selling more products. Finally, if a person is only persuaded to buy a different brand of product the value is effectively only the small marginal difference between brands.