I think as a child I got viruses from one of the ads, you know, the ones would put on the side of the site. We had to call in a guy, to clean parents’ computer. I felt really guilty and never touched those ads again.
So Google’s and Meta’s main business are ads. And recently I felt confused. Do people click on ads? Don’t these ads feel phishy to them?
On purpose? I vaguely remember doing so once several years ago, but I don’t remember what the ad was for.
On desktop I’m at no risk of accidentally clicking on ads because I have uBlock Origin, but on mobile, more specifically on the YouTube app, I’ll occasionally accidentally tap an ad or “promoted” video.
If you use Firefox for Android you can install ublock. Also there are third party YouTube apps without ads.