Do you have any examples of competition leading to more honest advertisements? It seems to me that it mostly leads to a race to the bottom that just optimizes for hiding your dishonesty better.
Of the top of my head: grocery retail in the UK and the impact of the German hard discounters Aldi and Lidl.
The UK used to be famous for really confusing strategies, like bogus discounts (50% off on an item that's just priced 2x normal), or buy-3-get-5 offers, that sometimes mysteriously wouldn't be registered at checkout.
The UK regulator often dinged the supermarkets for such behaviour, and gave them various stipulations. But as far as I can tell, they only really got better when Aldi and Lidl seriously started taking market share.
Aldi and Lidl have a very German no-nonsense approach to advertising. There's a single simple price that you pay.
Similarly in the UK, the regulator always told off the retail banks for their bad behaviour, but they never really changed their tune much. I am hoping that challengers like Monzo are changing that. (I left the UK nearly three years ago, so I don't know how retail banking has come along in the meantime.)
UK retail banks usually advertise that their accounts are 'free', but then have lots of hidden fees. Monzo doesn't have those hidden fees. (Eg when you try to make a transfer when you are out of money, Monzo just fails your transfer. My previous British retail banks charged you for that. And they typically gave you an 'unarranged overdraft' that you couldn't decline.)
Keep in mind that these are two examples of the top of my head. You can probably find more with a more scientific inquiry.
> It seems to me that it mostly leads to a race to the bottom that just optimizes for hiding your dishonesty better.
Do you have any examples of that?
Competition usually leads to customers getting more of what they are willing to pay for. Of course, that's not always what customers say they want, if you ask them outright.
(Eg Starbucks sells well. But what they are selling is not what people say they value in coffee.
I wouldn't call that dishonesty on Starbucks site. People pay for having a spot with free wifi to idle or work while sipping some acceptable beverages. People who go to Starbucks are not there to satisfy a distinguished taste in coffee. But Starbucks advertisement compliments on their good taste, anyway.)
