I think its possible the targeting works for the advertisers (at some level) while still failing completely for end users. e.g. If I get my hit-rate up from 1% to 2% by moving from contextual to 'give-me-all-your-data'-targeting, then that doubles my return as an advertiser, while as a user I don't see a difference and still think: "all ads I see are terrible".

The lie is telling users that targeted ads are good for them