Yeah but you didn't do it via the ad if I understand correctly. I would never ever do that, regardless of the price or any other fact. As mentioned above, I never click on them by principle, same as I never watch TV programs full of ads. Firefox with ublock origin blocks 95% of ads, for the rest I see if there is quick X to remove them or ignore them hard. If its too annoying I leave the page and go for competition.

The best ad could theoretically achieve with person like me is that I would go to ie skyscanner and check current situation.

You’re not the general public. Most people don’t even use ad blockers. Those of us on HN are a different breed in that regard.

Also, even clicking it and then returning later works for the advertisers.

Half of men aged 16-24 use ad blockers, so it’s not uncommon either.

I couldn't believe this, but then I did some Googling. I found this PR post: https://backlinko.com/ad-blockers-users

I'm not sure how accurate are these figures (it is an obvious "SEO" booster PR post acting like a blog post), but they are way higher than I expected. Even if it was even 25%, I would be shocked. It seems pretty sophisticated for the average user to install an ad blocker. I wonder how they distinguish men and women.

When I watch average people "swipe" on the metro, I am always shocked by the amount of adverts on their screen. How can they see or do anything? And some of the apps like Instagram (with doom-scrolling auto-enabled) continuously interrupt users to show them video ads that cannot be skipped. (I see the same for "free" games.) Ugh. Who are these people/zombies!?

If you end up buying a ticket you found in skyscanner on the same device then they'll (often) attribute, or partially attribute, that sale to the ad view even if you didn't click (obviously only if you aren't adblocking or if they're getting around your blocking).

But I think people at HN are the exception to how ads are used.