Change that to "internet advertisers", and that is exactly my assumption. Personally, I think that is a fine assumption to make. I have never seen an advertisement add value to a internet-based conversation I was having or article I was reading on the net.
So when amazon suggests that you might want to buy a certain bike helmet based on the fact you're buying a bike, you find that information utterly useless?
If I'm buying a bike then I either already have a helmet, or already know I need to buy one. So what value is the ad providing?
I'm not going to blindly purchase something without doing at least a little research (to check prices, at the very least), so the ad is just getting in the way and wasting bandwidth.
In that case, congratulations! You are the perfectly-informed consumer, aware of every relevant product category (and product). You use the Internet for price checking only. You don't need to be made aware of a new product in any category, because you are on all industry listservs. You are the only one of your kind.
Every other homo sapiens sapiens finds it difficult to stay abreast of all the submarkets he/she participates in. They spend their mental energies on other things, or simply don't care to research products costing under some threshold.
For example, I consider myself very savvy at computer purchases. However, I really can use guidance in purchasing power tools as I'm not a frequent user. In fact, I really wouldn't be surprised to learn that of the existence of entire categories of power tools. Just because I'm not seeking them out doesn't mean I couldn't use them around the house. Oh, and I don't really want to spend a lot of time researching them because I actually do have better things to do. Also, I freely admit that I have never researched tape; the benefits of one vs. the other are a topic of which I am wholly ignorant at the moment. (Obviously you are not possessed of such an ignorance.)
For the homo sapiens sapiens other than you, sometimes a little nudge is actually mutually beneficial. An ad might make us aware of a product category, or an upgrade to an existing category that makes it more useful to us. All of these might make us do more research, or simply go buy something.
So how do you find out about anything? Even in the Bike shop, they have product displays to show off products-- that is advertising. The funny thing is you are likely subconsciously exposed to products that you eventually buy all while thinking that you 'discovered' the product on some hipster blog while pretending that you're impervious. You wouldn't know about any new movie unless they were advertised. Unless you read reviews which, are seeded by the film's PR department which is, in effect advertising. Don't be so sanctimonious. You cannot honestly say you never tried a new restaurant unless expressly recommended by a friend. Those signs in front of restaurants.. You guessed it, advertising. You're a consumer whether you admit it or not.
The one area where I see advertisements providing value to those viewing them is in search and search-like contexts. In user testing, one of my colleagues was having a guy go Google searches for particular products. The guy said, "I'll tell you a secret. I ignore the stuff on the left. The really good stuff is in blue on the right."
But everywhere else, the purpose of the ads is to distract you from whatever you're trying to do. Which is a real struggle for Facebook; gossip is so much more interesting then your average ad that their click-through rates are terrible.
