I think you're deeply romanticizing the past, certainly with respect to Henry Ford and likely with respect to Rockefeller or Edison. I could be misinterpreting but it sounds like you're basically saying that today's companies get where they are due to predatory marketing, whereas in the Good Old Days everybody just worked hard and did their best and competed solely on quality and price.
That may be an unfairly reductive paraphrasing of your point though. I do think it's fair to say that nowadays marketers have far more different ways to reach people, and they have to be far more nuanced (or sneaky, if you prefer) in their messaging. I think the latter is due to it being much harder to outright lie to consumers, for legal reasons but also because there are many more ways for those consumers to discover and publicize sleazy advertising claims. 100 years ago cigarette companies advertised that you needed to become a smoker because it's healthy for you (they had nothing to back that up with, and plenty of evidence to the contrary). Those were the Good Old Days that you're fondly remembering here. Companies lied through their teeth about their products and each other. Marketers still lie, of course, they just can't be quite so blatant about it. But just because this is true doesn't mean that things are worse now than they were before.
I also wouldn't be so quick to blame people doing things you don't approve of (like taking crappy loans or buying expensive phones as status symbols) as being the result of an evil marketer exploiting a helpless prole. Actual predatory marketing is something that needs to be monitored and regulated, but there is also no shortage of people with lousy values who continually make terrible life choices. There probably always will be. Take away all marketing (not just the blatantly predatory kind, but also the lifestyle marketing that it sounds like you also consider evil), and many of those same people would simply be finding other activities to engage in that you would also not approve of.
Ultimately, who are we to say that some idiot spending way too much money for a status symbol he doesn't need should be prevented from spending his money however he wants? It's a very slippery slope to go down. Once you break open that philosophical seal, you may discover that there's lots of other people who don't approve of something that you do, who also want to tell you what to do in order to save you from yourself. They don't have to be right about it, there just has to be enough of them who agree that you are spending your money inappropriately or reading the wrong books or engaging in dangerous hobbies or whatever.
That may be an unfairly reductive paraphrasing of your point though. I do think it's fair to say that nowadays marketers have far more different ways to reach people, and they have to be far more nuanced (or sneaky, if you prefer) in their messaging. I think the latter is due to it being much harder to outright lie to consumers, for legal reasons but also because there are many more ways for those consumers to discover and publicize sleazy advertising claims. 100 years ago cigarette companies advertised that you needed to become a smoker because it's healthy for you (they had nothing to back that up with, and plenty of evidence to the contrary). Those were the Good Old Days that you're fondly remembering here. Companies lied through their teeth about their products and each other. Marketers still lie, of course, they just can't be quite so blatant about it. But just because this is true doesn't mean that things are worse now than they were before.
I also wouldn't be so quick to blame people doing things you don't approve of (like taking crappy loans or buying expensive phones as status symbols) as being the result of an evil marketer exploiting a helpless prole. Actual predatory marketing is something that needs to be monitored and regulated, but there is also no shortage of people with lousy values who continually make terrible life choices. There probably always will be. Take away all marketing (not just the blatantly predatory kind, but also the lifestyle marketing that it sounds like you also consider evil), and many of those same people would simply be finding other activities to engage in that you would also not approve of.
Ultimately, who are we to say that some idiot spending way too much money for a status symbol he doesn't need should be prevented from spending his money however he wants? It's a very slippery slope to go down. Once you break open that philosophical seal, you may discover that there's lots of other people who don't approve of something that you do, who also want to tell you what to do in order to save you from yourself. They don't have to be right about it, there just has to be enough of them who agree that you are spending your money inappropriately or reading the wrong books or engaging in dangerous hobbies or whatever.