This is a complex issue and one that's hard to address succinctly. It gets into the larger matter of media and its role and interaction with society, which is profound. This includes political and social elements going far beyond consumerism and consumption, though those are part of the dynamic.

For a short answer: advertising is not the only problem, but is a large component of a set of conflicts concerning information and media. It both directly and indirectly promotes disinformation and misinformation, opens avenues to propaganda and manipulation, and fails to promote and support high-quality content. It also has very real costs: globally advertising is a $600 billion/year industry, largely paid out of consumer spending among the world's 1 billion or so wealthy inhabitants of Europe, North America, and Japan. This works out to about $600/year per person in direct expense. On top of the indirect and negative-externality factors. Internet advertising is roughly $100 billion, or $100/yr. per person if you live in the US, Canada, EU, UK, Japan, Australia, or New Zealand. The "free" Internet is not free.

And the system itself is directly implicated in a tremendous amount of the breakdown of media, politics, and society over the past several years. Jonathan Albright, ex-Googler, now a scholar of media at the Tow Center (and its research director), Columbia University in New York, "Who Hacked the Election? Ad Tech did. Through “Fake News,” Identity Resolution and Hyper-Personalization", and editor of d1g (estT) (on Medium).

[S]cores of highly sophisticated technology providers — mostly US-based companies that specialize in building advanced solutions for audience “identity resolution,” content tailoring and personalization, cross-platform targeting, and A/B message testing and optimization — are running the data show behind the worst of these “fake news” sites.

(Emphasis in original.)

A Media Reader

By way of a longer response, I'd suggest some reading, of which I've been doing a great deal. Among the starting points I'd suggest the following, in rough order. Further recommendations are very much welcomed.

Tim Wu

The Attention Merchants is a contemporary version of the media, attention, distraction, disinformation, manipulation, and power game that's discussed further in the following references. If you're looking for current state-of-the-art, start here. Ryan Holiday and Trust Me, I'm Lying is a 2012 expose of the online media system. For an older view, Vance Packard's 1950s classic (updated), The Hidden Persuaders gives perspective both on what methods are timeless, and what's changed. A 2007 New York Times essay on the book gives a good overview.

Hamilton Holt

Commercialism and Journalism (1909) is a brief, easy, and fact-filled account of the American publishing industry, especially of newspapers and magazines, at the dawn of the 20th century. Holt was himself a publisher, of The Independent, and delivered this book as a lecture at the University of California. It gives an account of the previous 50 years or so of development in publishing, including various technologies, but putting the greatest impact on advertising. I'm not aware that this is particularly well-noted, but I find it a wonderfully concise summary of many of the issues, and a view from near the start of the current system. Holt includes this quote from an unnamed New York journalist:

There is no such thing in America as an independent press. I am paid for keeping honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. If I should allow honest opinions to be printed in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation, like Othello's, would be gone. The business of a New Yourk journalist is to distort the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the foot of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. We are the tools or vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. Our time, our talents, our lives, our possibilities, are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.

(An HN commenter reveals that this was John Swinton.)

Jerry Mander

Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. This is a 1970s classic that's held its value. Mander is an ad executive himself, though he took his talents to the Environmental movement, working closely with David Brower of the Sierra Club.

Adam Curtis

BBC documentarian, most especially The Century of the Self (part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4), and Hypernormalisation. These documentaries, the first a four-part series, the second a self-contained 2h40m single session, focus on media and propaganda. The first especially on Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud (Bernays' uncle), advertising, and propaganda. The second on Vladimir Putin.

Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. The title itself comes from Walter Lippmann and his earlier work, Public Opinion, which is something of a guide to its manufacture, and the genesis of "modern" 20th century media. The notion of mass media as having a political economy is a critical element in answering your question. That is: media is inherently political and economic, and advertising and propaganda (or as it was rebranded, "public relations"), all the more so.

Robert W. McChesney

McChesney has been continuing the exploration of media from a political-economic perspective and has an extensive bibliography. His Communication Revolution in particular discusses his own path through the field, including extensive references.

Marshall McLuhan

Particularly The Gutenberg Galaxy and The Medium is the Message.

Elisabeth Eisenstein

Either her book The Printing Press as an Agent of Change or the earlier (and much shorter) article that pressaged it, "Some Conjectures about the Impact of Printing on Western Society and Thought: A Preliminary Report" (more interesting than its title, I promise). Eisenstein draws heavily on, and improves greatly on the rigour of, McLuhan.

Generally: Other 19th and 20th century media scholars and writers

H.L. Mencken, I.F. Stone, and perhaps Walter Lippmann and John Dewey. Mencken and Stone are particularly given to shorter essays (see especially The I.F. Stone Weekly Reader, The Best of I.F. Stone and his New York Review of Books articles) which can be readily digested. Mencken's "Bayard vs. Lionheart" whilst not specifically concerning advertising largely describes the crowd-psychology inherent in mediocre or pathological social-political outcomes, and is a short and brilliant read. Mencken has a long list of further writings.

Edward Bernays

Especially Propaganda and Public Relations. Bernays created the field of public relations, and largely drove the popular support of "democracy" (a WWI war bonds advertising slogan) in favour of the earlier "liberty". For Stone, I cannot recommend his Day at Night interview (~1974) highly enough. 30 minutes. Bernays' New York Times obituary makes interesting reading.

Charles-Marie Gustave Le Bon

The Crowd: A study of the popular mind. "[C]onsidered one of the seminal works of crowd psychology." Wikipedia article.

Charles Mackay

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841). "[O]ften cited as the best book ever written about market psychology." Wikipedia article.

I have yet to read all of these works, though they're on my list, and I've at least reviewed most of the works and authors and am familiar with major themes. Virtually all of these will lead to other sources -- books, articles, authors, fields of study -- by way of bibliographies (looking backward) and citations (looking forward). Among my favourite and most fruitful research techniques.

This is also really just a starting point, though I hope it's a good one. Media isn't my field, or rather, I'd thought that, working in technology, it wasn't, but I've come to realise that (1) "information technology" is in very large part "media technology", and (2) the interactions of media systems and society, politics, economics, even culture as a whole, are beyond deep, and highly underappreciated.

The role of mass media in the spread of early-20th century Fascism is a particularly sobering story. See "Radio and the Rise of The Nazis in Prewar Germany", and recognise that you could include cinema, magnetic audio tape recording, public address systems (it's hard to address three quarters of a million people without amplification). More recently, radio has been studied in conjunction with the 1994 Rwandan genocide. These remain extant issues.

Bootnote

Adapted from a StackExchange contribution.

An agreement on Friday June 22nd caused oil prices to increase by the largest one-day jump since OPEC agreed to reduce output at the start of 2017. At the beginning of 2017 OPEC and 10 other oil-producing countries agreed to reduce their combined output by 1.8 million barrels a day, roughly 2% of global output. The 2017 deal was a reaction to the massive over-supply that brought prices down significantly since late 2014 when Saudi Arabia led the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to allow market prices to dictate their output. While the 2017 deal called for a reduction of only 1.8 million barrels a day, many countries reduced output even further resulting in 150% compliance of the planned quotas, or nearly 3 million fewer barrels of oil a day. Some members of OPEC had faced unexpected production outages whereas others simply chose to withhold their stockpile but the result was the same: oil prices were rising and global stockpiles were being used up to avoid a dangerous price spike.

The new agreement, taking effect in early July, aims to reign in the over-compliance of the 2017 deal and add more barrels of oil to the global market by returning to 100% compliance. To go from 150% compliance to 100% compliance, roughly 1 million barrels a day of crude oil would be added to the global market. However, some producers may be unable to increase their output for various reasons resulting in an expected increase of only 600,000 barrels a day. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak claims the $80 a barrel threshold hit in May of 2018 reflects the global inventory of surplus crude oil being reduced to a point where the oil market can rebalance itself. Saudi Arabia's Oil minister Khalid al-Falih promises his country will increase oil sales gradually starting in July. Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh had reservations about any deal because economic sanctions from the US put them in a position whereby the increased output of others may take over Iran’s market share. Oil producing countries have to weigh the risk that big consumers may invest in renewables as well as produce their own oil, when available, if prices rise too quickly.

Leading up to this decision, the price of oil steadily fell from the $80 tipping point in late May with the expectation that OPEC and affiliated oil-producing countries would flood the
market similar to the 2014 decision. While supply will increase due to this new deal it is a far cry from the amount many investors had feared - and consumers had hoped for - therefore the price of crude saw a 3% increase due to the news instead of decreasing further. The month-long anticipation of increased supply lowered the price of crude oil but the end-result of the deal caused a market correction as speculation was replaced by the true figure. While the agreed-upon figure is an additional 1 million barrels a day, the expectation is that only 600,000 barrels will be added a day however some countries wish to produce an even greater amount of oil to take advantage of the high prices while they last. Such an over-correction could still happen in the coming weeks leading to a drop in oil prices but investors believe their fears of another 2014 crash is averted.

Without this boost to supply, OPEC feared prices could spike to surpass $100 a barrel which would drastically reduce global demand and severely cut into the profit of oil-producing
countries who rely on the revenue from companies exporting oil. Many worried the supply increase would cause American oil prices to drop below $30 a barrel again, which caused
massive unemployment in the industry and a huge loss of revenue. From 2014 to 2016, as much as $4 billion in American employee wages was lost in the oil industry.

Countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia have the ability to produce oil at a far lower opportunity cost than most other countries, giving them a comparative advantage in the global oil
market. During the 2014-2016 period of oil surplus that brought US prices below $30 a barrel, American producers had to develop the technology to continue production despite the nearly 200,000 oil workers who lost their jobs in the shale industry. US producers made good on that pressure and were able to maintain production gains through more efficient extraction and refining methods. The relatively loose regulations on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, provided a much needed advantage to US producers who were able to leverage that technology and avoid Saudi Arabia's attempt in 2014 to shut small firms out of the market.

Avoiding a spike in oil prices in excess of $100 a barrel is beneficial to producers and consumers as demand would quickly plummet despite the short-term gains by companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp as well as countries such as Russia hoping to capitalize on the high prices. Spikes in oil prices turn consumers away from their unhealthy dependence on oil in favor of renewables and alternatives to plastics; invites pressure from big consumers such as the United States who aren’t afraid of imposing reactionary economic sanctions; and benefits countries such as Russia whose major exports are oil. Massive increases in supply have the effect of hurting the governments who rely heavily on high oil prices to make their profit as well as hurting the small oil producers that struggle to produce efficiently when oil prices drop. With oil prices rising by over 40% since early 2017 due to geopolitical risks to supply causing unexpected shortages and the increasing demand matching increased economic growth, the global oil supply needed a moderate boost.

The United States exported a record high of 3 million barrels a day during the week of the Friday June 22nd deal - producing 10.9 million barrels a day. Progressing from exporting no oil to exporting more oil than all but three OPEC countries pump out of the earth is not solely the result of US efficiency - some analysts say a portion of the record-breaking exports was sourced from US stockpiles. Maintaining this level of oil exporting is not only unsustainable, it is hitting US consumers in the wallet at a time where oil prices are on the risk of surging to a new high for 2018 - perhaps even surpassing the triple digits per barrel. This may be viewed as the United States attempting to force smaller members of OPEC and most non-OPEC producers out of the world market for oil as this export record comes at a time when most countries have finally expended the last dregs of their stockpiles. Countries that can afford to increase output considerably include the United States, Russia, and Saudi Arabia - and the former two appear very eager to commit to flooding the market without a care for the resulting over-corrections of the market which would send the pendulum of oil prices swinging back and forth causing international uncertainty especially for countries heavily dependent on the oil industry.

Sources

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/27/us-oil-exports-boom-to-record-level-surpassing-most-opec-nations.html

https://www.wsj.com/articles/opec-meeting-starts-amid-detente-between-saudi-iran-1529661983?mod=hp_lead_pos3

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2016/12/03/opec-reaches-a-deal-to-cutproduction

https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2016/12/05/heres-what-oil-did-the-last-timeopec-cut-production/#6007220b38b3

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2016/12/03/opec-reaches-a-deal-to-cutproduction

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/business/worldbusiness/18opec.html

https://www.iea.org/oilmarketreport/omrpublic/

https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/CO1:COM

http://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/historical-prices/oilprice/usd/1.1.2013_30.12.2017?type=wti

Irrational Exuberance is a seminal work on market valuations.

First published in March 2000, it compared the US stock market valuations to historical market valuations using both the tradition price earnings (PE) metric as well as a cyclically adjusted price earnings (CAPE) measure. The conclusion was the US stock market was overvalued compared to earnings.

A few months later, the dot com market crashed.

Revised in 2005, it compared US housing prices to historical prices using Shillers' own inflation adjustments as well as by comparing housing prices to housing rents. The conclusion was the US housing market was overvalued compared to historical inflation adjusted prices and compared to current rents.

A few years later, the US housing market crashed.

Revised a third time in 2015, it concluded that bond yields were globally unattractive, the stock market was overheated, the global housing market was frothy, and only the US housing market seemed reasonably priced.

The penny has not yet dropped, but that doesn't stop the media trotting out Shiller whenever the market drops a few percentage points.

This book has created the Case-Shiller housing index, and has generated substantial debate about the usefulness of CAPE vs PE.

With the incredible pace of automation and AI taking place across all sectors of our Global Economy, countries/governments/citizens need to start seriously thinking about how we can continue to survive when there are simply not enough jobs to be had. UBI is one option that countries have attempted to "beta test" with varying results. What is ~'s[sic] opinion on UBI and automation and AI "taking our jerbs"?

Recent news has made it plain that President Trump intends on going through with his much discussed plan of implementing tariffs on many sources of steel and aluminum imports to the US. This seem as good a time as any to ask a question that begs for evidence: Are trade wars good, and who benefits?

There is good reporting out there that analyzes the likely impact of this particular steel tariff, so feel free to find it and use it in your own argument (there are figures the administration has produced and figures that other studies have produced using the same source material). There are also plenty of other tariffs out there throughout history that have been studied and discussed. Because these sources can sometimes conflict, please be aware that your choice of what sources to use may need to be justified.