Ok, first of all: You asked about where people were "
actually even see ads anymore in this day and age". You do not get to dismiss the response by explaining why you believe that none of them affect
you.
Second: Formatting. The least you could do is paragraph breaks.
Third: You prove my point about not understanding modern marketing and the conversion funnel.
An advertisement does not try to move you directly from unaware to purchase in one move. It's an entire process designed to move
likely buyers further towards making a transaction. If you're not aware of the product, the first goal is to put it on your radar so that you recognize the name and market it works in, putting you into the Awareness stage of the funnel. Not everyone who is in the Awareness stage will move down to the Interest stage. Not everyone who is in the Interest stage will move on to Consideration, etc. That's why it's a funnel.
Now, are there people who will move immediately from being unaware to instant purchase? Yes. But they're an extreme rarity. The average successful conversion takes more than ten interactions before they're willing to make a purchase, and - barring special targeting methods - most of the interactions won't pan out for that particular transaction. Generally applied ads are a numbers game. Eg, a good display campaign on Google Ads might have a conversion rate of
2%, and that's usually just to get them to the Interest phase of signing up for a newsletter. However, as you progress through the funnel and cutting the losses of people who won't progress further, you're identifying higher and higher quality leads to focus your efforts on.
Modern marketing does not generally operate on the 'one and done' philosophy that you seem to be basing your presumptions of efficacy on. It sees interaction with its audience as an ongoing relationship that occurs across multiple sessions, with a given transaction being generally less important than fostering superior lifetime value. You not making a purchase from them when you're only at the awareness stage is not you beating the system, that's you not understanding the KPI and statistics of that phase of your customer journey.