zlacker

1. Discovery For known problems, sure! we probably don’t need ads anymore. But for unknown problems, we still do. When you're not even aware that a solution exists, or that your current approach could be improved, advertising can spark that initial awareness. At that stage, you don’t even know what to search for.

2. Competition If you know better alternatives might exist, yes, you can search for them. But how do you search for better deals, services, or products for every little thing in your life? You don’t. Nobody has the time (or cognitive bandwidth) to proactively research every option. When done right, advertising helps level the playing field by putting alternatives in front of customers. And in doing so, it also pushes businesses to keep their offerings competitive.

>>hedaye+(OP)
#1 was true, but I find that this is one area where LLMs shine: even when you can't trust the answers directly, they can give inspiration to find the right questions.

I'm not convinced #2 is true — all ads imply the thing advertised is the best deal (where "best" is somewhere on cheap-quality spectrum), and the same limits to cognitive bandwidth mean we can't easily guess whatever points were missing from, at best, a 30-second highlights reel.