False.

That's a myth promulgated by Milton Friedman. Jack Welch of GE now calls it the stupidest idea ever. See also Lynn Stout:

https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/06/26/the-shareholder-v...

A common way to maximize profits is to concern yourself with the interests of your customers.

The counterpoint being that often "you" are not the customer. The company buying ADs is.

Also many companies are not driven by long term thinking. They are focused on maximizing profits on a quarterly basis which may not be in your interests, even if you ARE the customer.

But I'm still with you for the most part. I don't like when people say a business is "evil". I think of it like a wild animal, like a Bear.

The Bear might be friendly with you, but it is not your friend, it might eat you if it gets hungry. It has its own reasoning. Even if it does eat you, it wasn't because its EVIL. It just doesn't have empathy for humans the way we do. It's a force of nature, and most of the time it just wants to see what's in your trash can and then go away.