Does anyone actually click the adverts?

The simple answer is yes, despite the fact that an awful lot of people claim that they never click them. The proof is simple:

Google makes around 90% of its ~$60 billion per year revenue from people clicking its Google Ads adverts.

So, clearly a lot of people click the adverts. A lot.

On a more local level, we manage plenty of Google Ads accounts across many diverse industries (both business to business and business to consumer), mainly in the UK but also in some other countries. Although mileage does vary, the bottom line is that there is never a problem driving traffic to a web site from Google Ads adverts.