As someone who's worked in the digital ad industry, I can tell you it's a mix bag. While it's absolutely true that some advertisers use deceptive design tactics, thankfully, they are not the majority. Clicking false 'X's irritates users and leads to a bad overall experience. The industry is slowly moving towards less intrusive ad formats and improving user experience, but there's still work to be done. By making noise about this, you're doing your part to speed up that change.

Wait, there's fake X's on ads now? Man, I need to catch up!

I've mastered the art of closing a pop-up in 0.01 seconds, thanks to those qualifying rounds of Whack-a-Mole

Back in my day, internet was just about sending emails, now it’s a war between you, ads and your sanity. Stay strong mate.

Sometimes I believe humanity reached its peak when they invented pop-up ads. sighs

Anyone else think those ad companies are in it together? They create 'solutions' for the problems they create themselves! It's all a big money-making scheme smh

See if these steps work for ya: First, get an adblocker, there are tons of them. Second, go to your settings and disable pop-ups. Third, uninstall suspicious/redundant toolbars from your browser. Lastly, be careful what you click on. Malware can sometimes make their way into your system via ads. Be safe!

Feel ya dude. Swear those fake X buttons have given me trust issues lol