It's the content (and personalized curation, based on what the platform's learned you want to see) that's addictive, not the ads. Users are addicted to the content creators, and watching ads is the price they have to pay to sit through to watch free content. Picking ads that are relevant, or at least not annoying enough to make you switch off, is part of the platform's experience. And there are creators who blend ads in as organic content, or at least a personalized endorsement which doesn't come across as phony, which MrBeast said gets the most positive response.

I recently turned off tracking, and suddenly started getting served ads for 'green cremation'. I guess statistically few people are interested in that, but conversions are lucrative, although the 99% of users who don't want to see it probably get mildly annoyed.