This is untrue. Historically speaking, print advertisements in many markets (even when restricted to English-speaking ones) could and did serve multiple purposes, including the relation of interesting topics and stories--ones that certainly were brought-to-you-by or even featured products in them, but worked in concert with the material of the publlication to entertain and inform the reader.
It wasn't until the 1960s, approximately, that print advertisements turned into the screaming look-at-me garbage that they have continued to amplify in volume to this day.
Advertising does not have to be a pustule on society, but we have chosen to allow such.
A favourite telling of this is Hamilton Holt's 1909 lecture at UC Berkeley, published in book form.
It's a quick and informative read.
Is the entire point. Yes, advertising might add value to other parties. It's almost certainly net negative overall.
1. Ad arbitrage has a role.
2. The blame of annoying/bad UX is unfairly being deferred to arbitragers. It's usually the implementation that annoys users, and that's generally the publisher's fault.
I don't know anything about System1's ethics and I'm not trying defend them by any means, but I don't agree with an argument that X company is bad because they've participated in arbitrage.
I've heard this argument a lot but it's hard for me to agree.
Saying that ad arbitrage doesn't "add value" is kind of like arguing that someone with a media-buying/sales role doesn't "add value" because they're just sitting in the middle taking a paycheck/commission.
Partnering with ad arbitragers isn't much different than outsourcing internal media buying/sales roles to an agency to increase reach or fill-rate.
Your point about ads being annoying to end-users isn't unique to digital. Advertisements on all mediums have always annoyed end-users. Certain implementations like full-page takeovers & loading 100 ads on a page are the most annoying. Generally it's the publisher's fault for the bad UX.