I feel the same and agree with you. I still have a physical newspaper subscription that I read. I like some ads. And some of those are very original and witty.

I feel the same and agree with you. I still have a physical newspaper subscription that I read. I like some ads. And some of those are very original and witty. I also get a literary magazine that comes twice a month. There are lots of ads of books and other indie magazines which I make lists from, and regularly buy. I am now in the process of subbing to local/indie type science/math/cs magazines to support and contribute articles to. So, old kinds of ads do work. I have a theory. I think there are three reasons. 1. There is the question of class. Ads in a literary magazine and a somewhat good quality newspaper know their audiences, and so do their advertisers, and the people they have for designing them. The internet ads are for every tom, harry, and dick. And hence they are less appealing to people of a certain level of class. 2. There is question of scale, of course. The designers of old kinds of ads design with a personality, an art. (Seen Mad Men?) While the ads in internet wants to scale. And I believe, data-driven decision making is the worst in terms of design/art. There should be art to these things. 3. Low barrier to entry is also a reason. To put an ad in a magazine like Byte or a national/provincial level newspaper, you need more money. And people who have more money are more likely to hire good designers/artists. And the internet ads have much smaller atomicity/granularity in terms of money. So anyone can put an ad. And these people will have less money, and will hire people who are lesser artists/designers. Their are other minor factors like ads not covering your content or you not having to click to read your content.