I agree with you that a bunch of clicks from people who don’t have any interest is just a waste of the advertiser’s money.

But the purpose of advertising is to gain a prospect’s attention long enough to make a pitch. The “support click”, dishonest though it may be on the surface, grants the sponsor a few precious seconds of attention. Presumably the clicker will at least glance at the landing page before closing it. If the landing page is compelling, the clicker might keep reading — and a sale might result.

If that happens often enough, everybody wins.

Would it really happen often enough? Beats me. But in a world in which we’re all struggling to make people pay attention, the concept has some appeal.

Economically speaking, it is a waist of resources and inflates the real interest in a product or service by simply having too many clicks then it should normally get.