> In order to sell anything, people need to know about it. Google and Meta provide a way to make this possible. If they didn't exist, you wouldn't somehow have a more affordable way to get people to know about your product. However frustrating the current situation is, it is still more accessible than needing access to the airwaves or print media to try to sell anything new.

The places people can find out about your product are controlled by a very small number of companies. And those companies not only own those spaces, they also own the means of advertising on those spaces. So if you have a product you want to advertise, you're not paying to distribute your message broadly to consumers, you're paying a toll to a gatekeeper that stands between you and your potential customers.

That's generally my thought as well, I am not implying you don't need to advertise. I just believe the industry has more or less reverted to an even worse version of what we had before (TV & Radio ads). At least before, there was ~100 networks you could sell to, now there's basically 10 if you include major networks. Of course you don't actually launch new products with TV ads, so it is more or less 2 platforms.

There are lots of ways to find out about products. We don't need Google or Meta to do look at a review site or ask a friend or search a directory or to solicit offers.

Adverising isn't there to push ideas into people who didn't need to know about it. Many industries would be better off without advertising (see e.g. cigarettes) because it ends up in an arms race.

If google and meta didn't exist, it is possible that the advertising market could be more competitive, so the amount companies would need to spend would be lower.

There is no competition in the ad space, so those companies can continue to just parasite their way to record earnings by stealing every other businesses profits. They create almost nothing of actual value, they are just heads of an ecosystem they totally control. Parasitism as a business model.