With retail you have a similar problem, but also a very different one. In retail you try to make people buy, but for the sake of selling and not for the sake of empowering the individual, so that's an obvious problem with an efficient economy (one that distributes solutions that empowers the individuals). But the big problem traditional retail is facing now, is a return to local production, self-production, and hyper-efficient internet and application-based selling and distribution of goods. 3D printing threatens globalized distribution of goods with a return to local customized produce (though I think 3D-printing in the basement is pretty far off, except for hobbying), in the form of "computerized crafting", the equivalent of a robot taking up the position a craftsman of the middle ages would have done. Only that the robot will be much more capable of granting what the customer wishes, as long as the customer knows what it wishes! And this is where retail and advertisement will have to pick up.
They will have to adapt to "selling appetizement", selling the appetite for any specific forms of goods. That is, we all have to learn to like many things. Some things of course we are acquainted with through no need for any kind of strict persuasion, like we might know what gender we prefer to have sex with, and whether we think one colour is better than the other. But, even something as basic as food, is really a matter of constantly being challenged with new types of food, sometimes by yourself, and sometimes by other people.
This is where advertisement and retail have to end up. They have to sell people an understanding of how to like something. How to utilize that thing for pleasure, whether it is relief, taste, typical empowerments, and so forth. The world needs somebody who knows how to make the most out of things. In the former thread where I wrote about the future society of experts, this is also a form of expertise... advertisers and retailers must become experts of appetite. So... I'll end here with a self-quote:
And thus they can help make a more happy and efficient futureAdvertisers and retailers have to become not the ones that lure you to buy, but the ones that teaches you to enjoy.
