Or that the ads are relevant to the content. Slashdot in the early 'noughties had ads from companies selling products of interest to a tech-interested audience.

Or that the ads are relevant to the content. Slashdot in the early 'noughties had ads from companies selling products of interest to a tech-interested audience. Relevant ads without needing any tracking, like magic (because individual tracking wasn't widespread yet). The issue is with broad-interest sites like regular news, where matching the ads to the content is impractical because the content is extremely general.