1. Targeted ads catch my attention better. Frequently I don't even notice or remember irrelevant adds.
2. Targeted ads are almost always, SEOed (if you will) to me; that is, they seem relevant, they offer the solution needed to fix the precise problem I'm discussing in the email chain, I click, I read, I would buy, but I realize that the product offered is nothing like what I've been reading about on the landing page.
3. Targeted adds are much more effective at convincing me to spend money on stuff or services that I could have lived without.
Sure, I should toughen up mentally against ads, but until I do, I protect myself from ads that will manipulate me and one way to do that is to prefer irrelevant ads when I need to see them.
Practically, once add service knows I am women, it insist on showing me ads for menstruation cups everywhere I browse. I also find juxtaposition of baby accessories and relaxation bullshit on metal, programming or games site mood killing. When they know less about me, I actually get less weird more neutral less crappy ads.
Umm - you should avoid getting information because it might influence you to buy things ? There's nothing wrong with what you said, in an ideal world ads would be just that - informing the customer about your product - and influencing their decisions with information. The psychological marketing tricks to make a thing more attractive is also a value add.
Problem is it's easy to be misleading, create disinformation and it can be very profitable - that's what leads to shitty borderline fraudulent ads we have.
UMMMMMMmmmmm - yes?
Obviously?
If you wouldn't let a salesperson barge into your house, interrupt your reading to try and convince you to get discount eye surgery, why would you let that happen in visual form?
in an ideal world ads would be just that - informing the customer about your product
This is not anything like an 'ideal' world. One human has such limited attention, that you could spend every second of your lifetime attending to a different product and do nothing else, and you still wouldn't cover them all. And companies still wouldn't be happy with this ridiculous limit case, they'd still want a greater share of your attention and wallet. You, us, individually, mean nothing except a source of coins.
If we want to mean anything to ourselves, defence against the dark arts is necessary.
The psychological marketing tricks to make a thing more attractive is also a value add.
The psychological marketing tricks to make a thing more attractive is abusive and parasitic. Ideal brains would search for what they need, and buy the most fitting thing. Human brains which can be manipulated are a weakness we all share - and we should all be kind enough not to abuse this fact of each other any more than we have to.
That's not really how things work - there are certain things you need to accomplish other things where your reasoning partially applies but even then it's debatable. But then there are things you do for pleasure - and how you value those things can be completely separate from their physical properties.
For example there was a study[1] where they gave people 5 vine samples, a cheap wine with 5$ price tag, same wine with a 45$ price tag, 90$ vine and the same 90$ vine with a 10$ label, and a correctly labeled 35$ vine. They found that reported enjoyment and measured fMRI activity went up with price even for same vine. Plenty of similar studies that show similar effects for branding, etc. So these things actually create value even if they don't physically change the product - you end up enjoying it more and it's purpose is your enjoyment.
I mean most of the high end stuff ends up being blowing smoke up your ass to make you feel good about paying 2-10x markup, even when the quality is superior they bundle the bullshit and inflate the price extra because they know you'll pay.
Being manipulated can also add measurable value to you. For example if a doctor gave you a sugar pill for some condition and the placebo effect helped you get better - would you say that it added no value just because the sugar pill physically did nothing ?
Corollary: if you can't show a relevant ad, HOW ABOUT NOT SHOWING AN IRRELEVANT AT ALL?
Ads are an insidious and highly effective form of psychological warfare. They play on human fears, insecurities, neuroses and instinctual weaknesses in order to part people from their hard-earned time and resources.
You might say the ads just bring their attention to needs they didn't know they had. I would say the opposite, that they create needs where there none existed to begin with.