[chii]

> How is that in any way beneficial to the product being advertised?

it isn't. But the clients of the advertisers cannot really have a say in this - the measurements of ad effectiveness tend to be done with impressions. They are optimizing for a metric that doesn't completely align with the goals of advertising

[mistercow]

Or as stated in Goodhart's law: When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.