On: Advertising as a source of dissatisfaction: cross-national evidence

[cwkoss]

Only companies with inferior products need to advertise: great products are spread quickly at zero cost in the age of social media.

Further, a proportion of the sale price funded the advertisement. Any product that has been advertised is necessarily overpriced.

[cm2012 → cwkoss]

Sentence 1 is untrue. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20034730 for an example.

Sentence 3 is also untrue. No advertising means people hear about much fewer brands, which means reduced competition, which means higher prices. This more or less balances out the cost of ads for the consumer.