Don't be fooled by the rain of downvotes that some comments are getting: the HN crowd is incredibly biased towards hyped stuff and CV-driven development.
I worked in FAANGS where simplicity really mattered over hype.
> there is nothing wrong with advertising per se, it's a natural part of a free market economy.
There is plenty wrong. Even Adam Smith's purely theoretical concept of "free market" requires buyers and sellers to be purely rational actors and be fully and correctly informed.
Advertising has one goal: making customers less rational and more biased towards a given product.
I worked in FAANGS where simplicity really mattered over hype.