Most people will not admit to being influenced by advertising and they'll rarely admit to clicking on them.
If you look at the real population though, they love advertising. Kids watch advertising on TV to find out what toys they want to buy. Teenagers look at adverts to see what fashion to wear. etc etc.
I really do think it's a case of not looking outside the bubble. HN and the techie crowd are pretty anti-consumerism, anti-mainstream, anti-advertising. But the general population isn't.
You are absolutely right that people consume advertising and react to it.
I think you are wrong to conclude that this means they love advertising. Perhaps it is just my bubble, but I can't imagine many people saying something like "I love advertising, I wish commercial breaks were longer".
IMO the difference with the techie internet crowd is that we are aware of what is an advert online and we also know that there are ways to avoid it.
Online and print advertising doesn't prevent consumption of content, or stop the user going about his business for 5 minutes.
Still disagree. I'm tech 'savvy', but I don't put myself in the HN crowd. I'm a consumer. I love advertising. I love buying stuff. I'm what I consider to be in the 'mainstream'. I can avoid ads, but I choose not to.
Do you have any actual numbers to contribute, or just your personal intuition?