I understand your point. Though when email campaigns came out the goal was to send the email to everyone. Then it was to target people. I think that targeted emailing obsession then led to the natural conclusion of targeted adverts on the web through personalisation. I'm not sure the ROI on the adverts is what companies think it is. Just like it isn't for email campaigns.

I feel there may be a better market like roody15 has said for contextual analysis of websites and provide adverts based on that. Enhanced with Anon user traffic and buy paths. Which could slowly overtake if done well.

Also on the effectiveness: https://thecorrespondent.com/100/the-new-dot-com-bubble-is-h... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21465873

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/10/16/facebook-lured-advert... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18234626

Then if you cross reference this with how procurement works, bullshit jobs and similar (can't find that article) starts to make some sense.

Though there may be arguments such as manipulation as to why the focus is on the advert personalisation and not the nefarious things that can come out of it. Think McCarthy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism#Blacklists

Regardless of your persuasion consider if the other side gets in and you end up on the black list.

'I don't mind adverts tracking me' vs 'I can't get a job because of X opinion'