What's the harm?

What's the downside to our contemporary practices of communication using images?

There are so many obvious reasons to why humans use images to convey messages. We use them for advertisements, road signs, and many other reasons. Images are great for the illiterate, including children, and for people of other nations that may speak a different language.
While we like to think that all these signs are for the sole purpose of making life easier, they are not. Images are used to persuade. They are used to show people what is right, and what is wrong. They are used to convince humans what to wear, buy, use, drink, eat, etc.
What's the harm? Even though these seem like good things, a lot of individuality is taken away. Humans no longer get to decide on their own what looks good on a person and what doesn't. People don't get to decide if their clothes are from last year, or if their clothes are "what every one is wearing." Our decisions become based on the pictures we see from day to day. Although people definitely still have their own opinions, they still want what looks like what every one else wants.