I’m probably a focus group nightmare. I’m a crotchety anomaly, someone who reads fine print on commercials and sees them more as porn yards for starving actors than product pitches.

So, I’m probably not the best person to evaluate the effectiveness of internet ads, or any other for that matter. Be that as it may, I still think that most internet advertising today is a woeful failure.

I’ll explain.

Let’s say I’m on a site and I’m trying to read an op-ed. I start to read the first paragraph and all of a sudden, a full-screen ad starts to advance down the page like the German army. On an amber eclipse crowding out everything else on the page, I’m told that Budweiser wants to meet my mouth. As I eventually find the tiny “close” button on this intrusive fiasco, I start reveling in my own foul mood.

Or let’s say I just want to watch some pornography. I’ll admit I have a clanky, 6-year-old desktop computer, but it can still play video like a charm. Unfortunately, it can only handle so many animated flash ads imploring me to find hot singles in my area or visit a site where I can whip 3-D animated women hogtied on a trapeze. By the time all this crap has loaded, my video woman of choice has been reduced to a very un-sexy rate of about 3 frames a minute.

Or perhaps I just want to check the weather. In order to find out if it’s going to rain later, I have to navigate through a wilderness of animated .gifs showing women so happy with their auto insurance quote that they’re dancing furiously and juggling apples.

What all of this boils down to is, the more obtrusive and visually complex an internet ad is, the less likely I am to pay attention to it. I don’t end up wanting Budweiser. I think to myself, “Budweiser made it difficult for me to read about waterboarding.” Even though I’m treated to a graphically-visual sneak peak, I don’t want to whip 3-D animated women. I think to myself, “that’s really disturbing. And since it’s slowing down my porn, I’m going to visit another site instead.” And no amount of hip gyrating is going to make me want to buy auto insurance on a weather site. If I am shopping for insurance, I think I’d prefer to go with a company that offers me more than apple juggling.

Of course, I might be the exception to the rule. But many companies, newspapers in particular, are floundering under an ad-based model on the internet. Given that reality, it might be time to reevaluate the idea that ads will draw more clicks if they’re flashier and more obtrusive. If no one is clicking on the ads, no matter how visually appealing, then the internet just becomes a much more cluttered, difficult place. Boo to that.