Newbie Question: Websites & Profit

[superadvisor]

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Some visitors click on ads, and the owner gets paid. If no one clicked ads, the site would probably lose money.

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I've wondered about this.

Have I overestimated the general populations average intelligence in ad-clicking?

In my whole internet life experience (7-8) years I have probably clicked on less than a dozen ads and never in my whole experience has an internet ad driven me to purchase a product.