To put a positive spin on this: we're moving quickly towards a world where AI companies control people's attention on information. This really hurts the ability for new businesses to get their name out there. Ads are really useful for new entries to a market

I think it would suck if to effectively get the word out there for a new product you needed to rely on..

...direct outreach (uneconomical for anything below $100/mo and IMO way more annoying than ads)

...word of mouth (referrals are very, very hard to control and aren't correlated with your product's quality)

..or owning a popular media source

Does that not hurt product innovation?

The harder and more expensive it is to reach customers, the more prices need to go up as a result