Performing the same though-exercise, I find myself with a different conclusion; I despise physical advertising. I hate driving down the high-way and seeing a massive billboard for who-even-cares interrupting the fields and forests. I don't want to have products pushed at me while walking around downtown. São Paulo removed all billboards/branding/advertising with their Clean City Law [0] in 2007 and the difference before and after is massive. It immediately looked so much more clean and beautiful (at least for the parts of the city they photographed, probably some selection bias here). Assuming that billboards and advertising are somehow putting money into the government's pockets, I would gladly raise my taxes to eradicate public advertising permanently.
Bringing the analogy back to digital advertising, I'd be happy to pay some sort of monthly fee to "The Internet" to receive access to it and never see an ad or be tracked again, perhaps similar to what Coil [1] is attempting, but somehow at full-internet scale.
Naturally, how this could be implemented is far beyond me, as are the economics behind advertising, so I suppose I'm doing little more than wistful thinking.
If I had to compromise, I would agree that more agency and less intrusive ads and tracking are a start.
If I had to compromise, I would agree that more agency and less intrusive ads and tracking are a start.
[0]: https://99percentinvisible.org/article/clean-city-law-secret...
[1]: https://coil.com/