When a company reaches a certain size their expected to have certain things just because other successful companies have them.
If the fired the team that writes, publishes, and distributes the company newsletter where I work, no one who does any real work would notice or care. The fact that we have a newsletter makes our company seem more big and successful to investors though.
newsletters do help companies maintain MAU and support the renewal process though. It's generally held that a company with an active CS team has lower churn.
Last year's superbowl had a bunch of advertisements for avocados, so it's not that surprising.
Advertising is important for brand recognition. That's why companies like Coke still spend a fuck ton of money on it. You want your brand to be the first thing people think of when they think of that industry.
I remember being in college using Facebook to just talk to friends and share photos. Then, I remember learning through some news article that brands were excited to have their own Facebook pages and being confused because it seemed like the last thing anyone would be interested in visiting. I also remember seeing people my age getting jobs making Facebook pages for companies and laughing at how ridiculous that sounded. Why would any company pay someone for that?
The enshittification has been happening for a really long time.