From an ad network's point of view, maybe, but from a publisher's point of view, no. This is just another variation on click fraud, because fake people don't buy real goods.

If you actually read the article, the Heineken advertiser's response is:

> “It was like we’d been throwing our money to the mob,” Amram says. “As an advertiser we were paying for eyeballs and thought that we were buying views. But in the digital world, you’re just paying for the ad to be served, and there’s no guarantee who will see it, or whether a human will see it at all.”