It's a syndication partnership with MSN. Publishers provide their articles to MSN via RSS. It's increasingly difficult to draw traffic to independent sites, so publishers are all seeking to diversify their traffic sources.
it's rarely about clicks when it comes to banner ads, it's about impressions (the ad was visible in a user's browser). as with most advertising, it's about keeping the user aware of a brand name or product.
while clicking on them does lead to a destination page of some kind, and it may be valuable to the advertiser for you to end up there (back on a product page for some thing you previously looked at but didn't buy for example) the ad networks and publishers hosting the ads on their pages are mainly getting paid by impressions.
probably because for most individual consumers it's a choice of last resort. if they had access to usable DSL/cable they'd choose that instead (cheaper, simpler), but have had to turn to starlink to get online where they live.
Ferris Mewler