@Josh
That is really bizarre.
I'm aware that mentioning all this is bizarre, but I think it's important to let people know how Google makes all it's 747 Jumbo jet and Googleplex cash.
I think your misconception with Adsense highlights the need for some awareness. Most people don't know how Ads get traffic'ed online from the brands that buy them to the parties where they are convinced to the second tier exchanges to lowly ad arbitrages that shuffle them around in back alleyways before they are finally shown to users with 8 tiers of containers and 8 tiers of tracking and data mining.
That's the ugly truth of where all that money comes from.
It's like Lehman Brothers and the repackaging of bad loans as commodities.
These ads are repackaged and resold as commodities too. It's not exactly what users who are familiar with Adense deal with. It's black magic and voodoo, and the stuff that 747 jets with beds for Larry and Sergey are made of.
