But my final two points stand, it frustrates me when I see arguments suggesting that all advertising is a net negative to society (ethically, environmentally, socially). The economic growth, and increase in quality of life, we have seen in the last 30 years is directly related to the web and therefore advertising.
That is, if we want a chance to bring back the beautiful world we've inherited intact from so many generations of ancestors. My daughter can only see half of what I saw when I grew up, maybe less. There is no horizon without smoke, mountain snow contains ash and there are few bird that sing in the forests because insects are nowhere to be found. Eyelashes or plane tickets, those things cannot be compared to what we're losing in the process.
No amount of micro optimization is going to stop this train, we have to look at the algorithms.