This is a common misconception. Advertising does not need to be hidden to "work". Advertising is not just facebook ads (which you admit to clicking, although not as regularly as your dad), but also involves creating positive sentiment for a brand or product over time through techniques like mere exposure.

I Wwnt to preface that I do understand where you are coming from, and spent many years agreeing with the sentiment that you pose, but over time came to realize that I was mistaken and had an oversimplified view of what makes the advertising industry tick.

In the interest of discussion: do you think that most people are too lazy/ignorant to ignore ads like you and your friends do?

I ignore ads on the web completely. I think I got like that thanks to games. I can focus on the thing I came here for and ignore nearly all unassociated often animated crap. Things that get me are disgusting ads. Not sure why but I don't filter them out automatically. Same for overtly sexual ads. Rest is just background. People were praising adblock but I never bothered because it didn't do much for me.

On the other hand my non-gamer gf can't understand how I can read or play a flash game when it's surrounded by few animated banners.

And my mom starts to read each page from top left corner as if it was a letter she got from IRS or sth.

Limiting exposure to ads is mainly advice for young children as they lack the cognitive ability to understand the intent of advertising until, IIRC, around the age of 7 or 8.

Both the sibling comments to me are right. Kids are impressionable, and you being smart doesn't mean everyone else is. Also the people making ads are definitely smarter than you and me.

Someone put it this way regarding the recent machine learning researcher craze. It went something like - PhDs are currently being paid millions to study where to place the pixels on your screen to influence you.