If they merely existed but didn’t engage in advertising, you could advertise and, consequently, outperform them. But they all know this too. This is the game theory I’m alluding to. It’s a Prisoners Dilemma except with added externalities in the cases where anyone advertises at all.
Now, how does the prisoners dilemma get solved? External enforcement. In advertising that might entail laws and regulations to curtail advertising. These laws and regulations may be net positive to the erstwhile advertisers themselves in this scenario. (The equivalent mechanism in the actual prisoners dilemma is that snitches get stitches.)
You could never remove advertising without silencing companies. Let that sink in. As long as companies exist and have tools to reach out, even if it was a free Facebook post, they're always going to do that.
It is possible to heavily reduce available advertising channels with some clear regulations. It isn't that hard to imagine. Sure, it wouldn't be perfect, but there is a wide range of "advertising pervasiveness and harmfulness" that we can dial the knob down on.
Exactly. We don't have to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
And it's not like I object to companies publishing on their own channels. They can have a website, a Twitter account, a Facebook account. If people volunteer to read that, great. If we just eliminate paid manipulation, it'll be a huge step forward and we'll free up enormous sums of money.
Without advertising being a crucial part of that environment, they'd have to focus on making a better and cheaper product than their competition, instead of engaging in a shouting match.
Without advertising, no matter how good your product is, people will never find you. People would just go with whatever product they happened to know (the market incumbent, usually), or just not have access to that category of product.
I have never seen advertising for Zojirishi rice cookers, and yet I somehow own one. The same is true for my shoes, which I bought at a shoe store. I don’t really see advertising for firearms but I have purchased some, and particular models thereof for that matter. I have seen advertising for the mattress brand I own, but it was sleeping on a friend’s mattress of the same brand that made the difference. Most of my net worth is in a brokerage I have never seen advertised. My primary credit card was one I learned of by way of mouth; it’s seemingly-deliberately advertised nowhere. I have booked airlines I’ve never heard of before. My charitable donations go to a charity that does not seem to advertise. The beer I drink has a funny name, but I saw it in the beer store and tried it and I’ve been drinking it ever since despite no advertising that I’ve seen. And none of these individual decisions are particularly rare or hipsterish; in fact, the main reason I give my business to most of these companies is because other people do so as well and recommended it.
Likewise, all the advertising in the world didn’t seem to save a particular obnoxiously-promoted product that one is meant to “apply DIRECTLY to the FOREHEAD!”
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" -- Upton Sinclair
As I told you, I find good products all the time without looking at advertising. The problem you imagine might conceivable have been a big issue before the rise of the internet. But now anybody who feels a lack can quickly search. E.g., right now I'm traveling; before I left I looked at Wirecutter's travel products guide: https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/travel-guide/
It was great. I found and tried out a few new products. I'll buy more of some of them, and have already recommended a couple to friends.
The reason you keep failing to understand a pretty simple point is that you are identifying with a particular business, rather than consumers. But think of it the other way: Why should I as a consumer care if a given business can't manipulate me into buying their product?
Answer: I don't. I trust that I'll find sufficient good products when I need them. Indeed, without paid audience manipulation, I expect I'll find better products on average.
I agree that competition against incumbents might get more difficult, though if the offering was truly superior, it would become known through word of mouth alone. As for not having access, why would that happen? When people have problems, at least a fraction of them is actively looking for a solution, and those people would introduce everyone else to a new category of products.
What would definitely suffer is products that exist only to fulfill a manufactured demand, but that would be a good thing.
