I have recently noticed that the words "ad" or "marketing" have become, in and of themselves, with no additional information or context, slurs or dismissals.

I understand why. The modern internet has turned advertising into a morass of constant bombardment and the only sane response is to block as much as possible and ignore as much else as possible.

But it's unfortunate because, in some sense, ever single thing that a company every says that is not legally mandated in some way is a form of advertising.

And in many cases, that "advertising" contains true, useful information that can be helpful.

What is important isn't whether or not something is an "ad", but instead, whether or not it contains true information that is helpful in some way.

Many ads don't reach this bar. They are either misleading, straight up lying, or information that is almost completely useless.

But when I'm searching for a particular product, about the only source of information at all is some form of advertising, and I almost always find at least some amount of it to be helpful in making a product decision.

Ads are more often than not polluting to the informational ecosystem, but that's not because they are ads.