Yes! Ordinary people like ads. They put magazine ads up as posters in dorm rooms. They quote TV commercial catchphrases and jingles to one another. They watch t

Yes! Ordinary people like ads. They put magazine ads up as posters in dorm rooms. They quote TV commercial catchphrases and jingles to one another. They watch the Super Bowl for the ads. People talk about podcast host read ads and do parody versions. And people love "influencers," who are just advertisers who say sassy things on Instagram or whatever. But no one likes web banner advertising. It's just a bad experience! At best people like it when you search and the thing they wanted is at the top of the list because of paid placement. They don't care if the placement was paid or not, but they like seeing the thing they wanted. Banner ads make the experience of using a web page worse, but unlike TV ads or magazine ads, they don't contribute anything good back. It's just "here is an ugly square that disrupts your browsing experience." Publishers should think about other ways of engaging reader attention.