Can a business have its ads seen just by its local geographic area without targeting?

Trivially by ip. No tracking required.

I agree. The only reason contextual is frowned upon and thus gathering lower prices is because targeted is promoted as more effective. So contextual is viewer as the lesser option. And also hampered so it doesn't actually work.

Once contextual advertising once again becomes the best option because targeted ads are banned, it will be worth the full price again.

Also, I think it will in fact work better. There's no point showing cosmetics ads on a tech site to a guy like me just because I bought eau de toilette last week. Really no point because I buy one bottle of the same stuff every few years. Any contextual ads that that site would have shown would have more relevance to me. Real world example.