I'll take the other side of that argument. Search engines should put the most relevant products at the top of the page because they are the best fit, not because someone paid for them to be there.
If all advertising disappeared tomorrow, the world would function better. Consumers would not have advertisers trying to manipulate them, and they would more rationally allocate their resources.
Advertising is a tax placed on people who have already bought a product, which made it more expensive, to manipulate other people into also buying that same product.
Without it, good products would succeed on merit / independent reviews / word of mouth.
* The one exception I can think of is possibly during the scale period of startups, helping them scale faster (artificially) than if they just followed the "be the best and it will catch on" approach.
If all advertising disappeared tomorrow, the world would function better. Consumers would not have advertisers trying to manipulate them, and they would more rationally allocate their resources.
Advertising is a tax placed on people who have already bought a product, which made it more expensive, to manipulate other people into also buying that same product.
Without it, good products would succeed on merit / independent reviews / word of mouth.
* The one exception I can think of is possibly during the scale period of startups, helping them scale faster (artificially) than if they just followed the "be the best and it will catch on" approach.