You didn't answer my question at all. Why do companies and celebrities and people who are powerful and who have access to the best and brightest minds pay so much for an online presence?

I did. You didn't read it, apparently, but I did.

To wit:

"They aren't changing minds. They're reinforcing and radicalizing the beliefs of people who are already in the bubble they're in. And it's far from useless!"

Literally the first paragraph in my response. They're paying for ads in order to reinforce and radicalize and mobilize people to act in accordance with the advertiser's desires.

Ads work. Majority of them you don't even realize are ads. But they work.

Of course they work, but they don't do what you think they're doing. They don't convince people to change their minds, they convince people to act: to buy, or vote, or be more strident in accordance with the beliefs the advertiser already knows they have.

The ads you see are carefully crafted to appeal to people who believe what you believe. That's why pro-Trump ads in red areas didn't say "here's why you shouldn't vote for Harris," they said "you already know Harris is a bad choice, and here's why you should make sure to go vote." It's a distinction so subtle that most people don't notice it and think that the ads really are trying to change their minds, but that's not how it works.

I started my career in marketing, I know how campaigns are put together. The discussions aren't about how to make a group of people believe a thing, they're about how to frame the conversation so that the people who already believe something act on that belief in a way that benefits the advertiser. So you get ads like, "you care about your dog, so make sure you feed them Dogfood Xyz." You don't get ads that say "here's why you should care about your dog," because the people who already care about their dog don't need to be convinced, and the people who don't have a dog won't listen anyway.

How do you get people to care about a dog? You take them to a humane society shelter in person and introduce them to a dog.

People like you on the left are so oblivious to this stuff.

Paternalistic nonsense. Oh wise and great guru, please bestow upon me thy wisdom.

Also, bringing my political affiliation into this is laughable. I knew all of this back when I was an angry conservative, too. And what changed my mind to make me more progressive? Meeting people who weren't like me.

I don't get it. It's so obvious and you all just keep refusing to see the answers right in front of your faces.

The conservative urge to say "the truth is right in front of your face, stupid sheeple!" "Oh, this thing that I believe and have had reinforced to me by people who directly benefit financially from that belief is actually really obvious, duh!"

If it's so obvious, then surely you have evidence for me. Right? No? All the evidence is in my favor? Huh, how 'bout that. See, you can't convince people of reality online. Exhibit A: this conversation.