I think the theme you and other posters are stating in various ways, is that being expised to persuasion always has negative value. The motivation for some actors can be good, but it will never be universal. When seeking out information to make a purchase, one of the primary taks is to identify and filter out persuasion in the process, in the form of sponsored listings, or reddit shills. I have seen calls to ban paid persuasion, or even all paid speech. I don't know if that is compatible with the notion of free speech, or if I agree it is a good idea, but it certainly would have some good effects in addition to any bad ones.

It's not persuasion that's the issue. Opinion articles in newspapers are persuasion and I actively seek them out sometimes.

One of the blogs I used to read was The Last Psychiatrist. The author had a saying: "if you're seeing it, it's for you". In other words, if someone goes to the effort of putting something in front of you, they did it for a reason. Usually that reason is not "my company is growing via word of mouth and organic PR efforts because our product is so good, but I just want to grow faster."

I feel like it's happened to me multiple times that I've seen an ad for something I actually want, but if I click through or look up the company advertised, then do a little research on that company, I discover that it's a scam or a super crappy version, then I actually purchase the thing from a more reputable company with higher quality. So I guess they succeeded in getting me to buy something, from their competitors.