I do it from time to time in a very specific circumstance: when the top organic result is the same website as the ad. I like costing them unnecessary money.

Sometimes I click on ads for mobile games if I think they actually look fun. They just redirect straight into the app store so there's not much chance of anything bad happening

I don't remember ever clicking an ad. I probably have, but I don't remember ever doing it.

I pay for as much content as I can, to avoid that vomit.

I sometimes click on Instagram-Ads because some of them are so unhinged that I have to find out what they are about?

Yes, people click on ads. We're in bubble here on lemmy. Most of people here invest time and energy to actively avoid ads. Typical internet user doesn't have such a strong aversion to ads. They will watch TV ads, listen to ads on the radio, watch YT without adblock (can you even imagine?) and yes, click on ads they see on websites. Ads are like spam, it's cheap to show them and you only need 0.0001% of users to actually buy something to turn profit. With current tracking levels and ad targeting it's more effective than this. The entire internet is basically a ad pushing machine. Quite disgusting to be honest.

Never since I installed a program that prevents me from doing so by accident.