Very much this. It's a site/app that has probably been used by 80-90% of adults living in America over the last decade. It would not exist if these ads weren't

Very much this. It's a site/app that has probably been used by 80-90% of adults living in America over the last decade. It would not exist if these ads weren't targeted. I know because we knew (past tense because I'm no longer there) exactly how much targeting increased click-through-rate and how that affected revenue. On top of that, they were ads for doing more of what the user was doing right then, tailored to tastes we'd seen them exhibit over time. Our goal was that the ads should be relevant enough that they served as an exploration mechanism within the site/app. We didn't always do as well as we hoped there, but it was a lot better than what you see on most of the internet. And far less intrusive because they weren't random (i.e., un-targeted). I have run ad blockers plus used whole house DNS ad blocking as long as I've been aware of them, but I was fine working on these ads because it felt to me like ads done right. If we can't even allow for ads done right, then vast swaths of the internet have to be pay-walled or disappear. One consequence of that... only the rich get to use most of the internet. That's already too true as it is, I don't want to see it go further.