Sorry for the wall, I see a lot of misconceptions about this stuff...

I'm not convinced this is true for most people.

YOU may be conscious enough to understand not to buy a large vehicle because of emissions, bust MOST people do fall for marketing after a long enough period of time of being exposed. Think about ALL the F-150's you see (In my area they are everywhere) that have NOTHING in the back. NOTHING. Not towing ANYTHING. I have an EV hatchback & a wagon with a mid-sized trailer. I've done WAY more backyard projects than the vast majority of the people in suburbia. We've used excavators, built multiple 30 ft retaining walls, a 12x12 shed, and we plan on doing more. I will never need a truck because I can tow 2000 lbs in my wagon, which is more than 99.9% of people need.

Most "normal" people that I talk to, and that's all we have if we're not looking for people who are on the internet a lot, most of them think their truck is really convenient. They get a full sized cab that holds their whole family, they get that truck bed that they throw a toolbox and once in a while, and the truck can tow 10,000 lbs even though they literally don't even own a trailer hitch and don't know how it works.

Trucks are just the replacement SUVs, oversized cars that marketing has determined is the "american car". You can do anything in a truck! Or you can do the vast majority of things in a Toyota Corolla too, but those aren't "cool".

Marketing works dam well, Apple owns the high and computer market even though we know that they screw over customers by making their products impossible to repair (literally, there's software preventing it). Ford sells the most vehicles and america through the F-150, which I already established is something most people don't need but buy anyway. The vast majority of people do not even need a single family home. How many backyards go completely un-maintained? How many older couples live in a 4 bedroom house because... That's just what they are used too... We could have more middle housing for people who want space, but not a backyard, but they don't exist. You literally can't vote with your wallet to buy the housing you want if you don't want a single family home (Or a crazy expensive condo downtown, or to rent the rest of your life...)

And lastly, when your driving on the road in a little ev hatchback like me, you become painfully aware about how gigantic all of the trucks and suvs are around you. You realize that at any moment if somebody takes a wrong turn you are probably dead. Most people become very uncomfortable with that, and they get a bigger car, as big as they can afford, to prevent that feeling.

And we've just talked about cars and living situations, how do you vote with your wallet when every single product is made by child labor in a country being exploited by america? Can you trust when a company tells you that it doesn't do that? How much greenwashing exists?

No, car companies marketed big cars that are less efficient. They did this because using more gas is good for the "economy". It is good for business to spend a lot of money on big cars that take a lot of gas. There has absolutely been times in our history where our energy regulations were higher and our cars were more efficient and everyone was happy with it.

Think about it, why do marketing departments even exist if people are going to theoretically buy and demand what they want anyway? I'm too young to remember when commercials basically just explained what a product was and what it does. Nowadays, commercials are trying to get you to feel something, not explain something. Advertisement online are trying to be splashy and catch your attention, not be useful and tell you what you're going to get.

Any marketing department should be able to explain that they try to get people to by their products for reasons other than customer demand.

How do we demand it exactly? I've been exercising my choices as a consumer for decades and it's gotten me nowhere. Personal responsibility only goes so far, the companies choose what you're able to buy and you make the choice after the fact.