True. But if you've never clicked doesn't that mean something? Even if the goal is impressions wouldn't you prefer someone who has shown to be influence-able over someone who isn't? (Hint: I would de-target non clickers.)
Yes, if online advertising was strictly a deal between the media (online newspapers etc) and the advertisers.
But there's a useless middle-man industry that is the cause of all these problems: the ad-networks. They don't quite care that the impressions are no good to the advertisers, and they care only very little about the brand-damage to the media, caused by malware and bandwidth-waste. Or (dangerous) inconvenience to the consumers.
We wouldn't have any of these issues if the media were just to strike deals with advertisers themselves (like newspapers used to) (or maybe hiring out to an advertising agency, but still keep full editorial control, no newspaper would regularly allow an ad agency to inject their content last-minute before press, without any editorial oversight).
They would basically just self-host the ad banner, with a click-through link, self-hosted analytics for the advertisers, and everything would be fine. Ad blockers don't block self-hosted banners. No viruses, no malware, not as much privacy risk, no bandwidth wastage.
The ad-networks are really bad for all parties involved.
