Aside from a small outspoken few, I don't think that anyone is really arguing that advertising doesn't work. That's never been the contention, and the goal isn't to be completely rid of advertisements.

The argument has been the annoyingness and frustrating way in which advertisements present themselves and constantly worm their way into your private life without your permission. It's advertising rings with exceptionally poor vetting allowing malicious ads through, no scrutiny applied. It's advertisers ignoring the expressed wishes of individuals who set Do Not Track, or installing adblockers; I will concede the latter often isn't much about philosophy and choice as it is about annoyance, but the site has the ability and choice to not provide content in that case - the sites and advertisers work to circumvent it.

The problem with the idea of discussing advertisements in a sound way is that it's always been a discussion in bad faith on the side of advertisers. Think of every time there has been a major privacy breaking advertising and data collection tactic - the only reason these times stopped was because they got caught, not because someone inside thought "huh, this might not be a good idea to make an invasion of privacy." Look at the recent issues with Android based phones listening for silent beacons without user permission; a 40 page TOS on a phone does not constitute a fair warning, and courts have repeatedly upheld this position.

Yes, I'm sure there are some "good" advertisers, but it's a poisoned landscape. The advertisements you see going to the majority of the web aren't from these good advertisers, and websites aren't interested in it either. There's money and incentive in crappy advertising and invading people's privacy. It's not "bringing value to customers", it's bringing value to advertisers and data hoarders while paying out a little to services, and these services are happy enough to lie to you about adblockers. Look at this pop-up from Bloomberg of all places: [1] It's a flat-out lie as to why they want you to unblock ads; the page renders perfectly fine and is perfectly reasonable without it, they just want you to see ads. It's not about creating value, it's about getting eyes on ads. Doesn't matter how, why, or what in many cases, just eyes and ears in contact with ads.

Advertisers have dug a huge hole for themselves, and they're just digging deeper every time there is another upset over something advertisers do - they issue a stock apology, then do it all over again with a slightly different method. It's absurd, and the idea that somehow we need to meet advertisers half-way is equally absurd. There has not been a show of good faith from the advertising realm, even in the face of government regulation. It's complete disregard for everything in the name of a few bucks and more eyes and ears in contact with whoever happens to pay enough to get an ad there. Even with the hoards of data that they mine about people, you still get ridiculous advertisement patterns along the lines of "I see you just bought a washing machine. Here are washing machines you might want to buy!"

There's no sense or reason, it's not advertising as a service, it's just spewing non-sense out there, and the amount of infrastructure, time, technology, and brainpower used to spew it out there is absolutely mind-boggling.

[1] https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*nk9KdK0VXmLi3R2JWT...

Edit: Fixed a sentence where I forgot words: "huh, this might not be a good idea to make an invasion of privacy."