While the interaction between advertisers and consumers is somewhat poisoned now because of bad actors, I still think there is potential in online advertising.

In the end, I want to know about things that would interest me (and which I'd like to pay for), and those selling those things want me to know about them too. If we do it right, it's in both our interests.

The problem is that it's also in the interest of the guy selling to show me things I'm not interested in. But if an ad service targets me sufficiently well, filtering out the nonsense, my life is actually better than otherwise.