Many users will type, for example, "facebook" into their address bar. The browser searches Google, and whoever bought the ads will be on top.
Facebook can't allow any other company to come up first, and so they pay.
Many, many ad clicks work this way, and I consider it to be a dark pattern at best, but similar to fraud at worst.
http://indianexpress.com/article/business/companies/abuse-of...
I think facebook feeling the "need" to buy those ad slots is their own problem.
I'm not suggesting a solution to this. The core issue is that most ads are bad for users, and an ad business can never be truly harmless to its "product" -- the users.
Not much difference in my mind.
> The core issue is that most ads are bad for users
That's true even if the ad is for "potato", though.
I'm not ready to call the very concept of ads a racket, even if it's generally negative.