[moooo99]

You are making the mistake of assuming that the average internet user behaves in a similar way to you. However, the fact alone that you are using HN suggests that this is likely not the case.

I used to have a similar sentiment to you, based on my own behavior on the internet. But I did have a few eye opening moments.

Back in school I frequently got asked for help with computer stuff. While I usually denied, I did help some close friends out occasionally. At some point a friend came to me with a software issue and brought her notebook. She had so much stuff installed, was using Edge without any adblocker and she somehow managed to install three antivirus programs (one of which I am 90% confident was a virus itself). Until that point I always assumed that basically anyone of my peers would at leset have an adblocker installed (this was four years ago and I am 23 now). I’ve had similar experiences since that have proven my ignorance.

And regarding how ads work: my grandfather used to sell glasses and watches for a living. While the watches are mostly sold shortly after his death, the glasses were quickly out of fashion and were laying around for decades now. Since these kind of glasses are now seeing a comeback I tried to sell them. I opened an eBay shop and listed two frames, both of which were sold but for a laughably small amount. I listed two very similar frames and ran some ads (mostly instagram) targeting the demographic I assumed would be willing to buy frames like these. I sold the ones advertised for 17 times more than the ones that were „organically“ discovered.

TL;DR: just because you think ads don’t work on you does not mean they don’t work on others. Advertisers aren’t dumb, they measure the success of their campaigns (hence the tracking) and it does work with large parts of the population