A small percentage of users click ads that I assume make up for the users who don't.
And for the record, I click ads sometimes. Mainly on Facebook, because they're impressively relevant. I've discovered quite a few apps and products that I like through ads.
Often things that don't make sense, don't make sense for a reason. There are some ads that influence people indirectly (e.g. the trailer of one movie coming before a review of a movie on youtube). But click-through ads at this point may be a total fake business for washing drug money or something.
Not even my parents or grand parents click ads. I wouldn't believe anybody who claims there might be an unknown group of people who really do click ads.
Most people don't even recognize the ads. They don't understand what "sponsored" means for example (and it's implications; what?! people are paying money?). This is not because they are sd. They work in totally different domains and just like we don't know the latest things in those domains, they don't know the latest in ours.
It should be telling that generally most advertising is paid per impression, not per click (even when the advertiser pays per click, their cost per click is generally calculated from CTR and thus really a cost per impression)
You might not click on the ads, but (if you're not blocking them) you're probably seeing them, and remembering some of them, and they influence you.
