RE: Singing my life
The conclusion of "it adds very little value" is dependent on the person, as someone aware of the deception cannot be deceived and the majority of deception is self deception, where people think that's what they "are" and "who" they are but really, they HAVEN'T a clue when it comes to who and what they are.
This is the thing with it, if aware (looking for) the deception it is easy to spot, if really understanding of the self it is easy to spot. The little tricks online of the websites or, the product placements in a movie are easy to see when actively looking for them but most aren't. People sit down in front of a show or screen to be entertained and aren't necessarily looking for what is there to deceive them.
Remember that that was provided in the 1950's when people would have less priming to look for the deception of that kind. Now though, there has been 70 years of learning on the part of the psychologists too.
The marketing has been working on Feud's "hidden desires" as they concern group psychology or how we're influenced by being part of a group. The insights which Edward Bernays developed from that have largely remained what marketing works on: what we want instead of 'what we need' as it had concerned itself with for the most part prior to his insight. The nuances have changed much like fashion changes but the underlying methodology hasn't.
One way to counteract the effects of consumerism is to simply consider where the money is going to which is easy enough to do as everything is marked with it's point/country of production and that works in tandem with "do I really need this, or is this me wanting x because it's newer, cool, makes a statement about me.."
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I think that in time this will be aided by people being a little more wary and understanding of where it actually goes. At the moment I don't think people on average consider the paper trail much. Blockchain people might be a bit more aware of the chain of custody than most.