Infomercials, outdated or effective?

Judging by the frequency by which I see infomercials appear on television, I could say that they are a great way to market products. On the other hand, I find them to be too long, too generic, and just plain predictable.

They all seem to take the same approach. The products that are marketed are usually ones that try to make some task in your life easier like cutting tomatoes, or draining the water out of your bowl of spaghetti. Then, it's five minutes of demonstrations and over-dramatizations of how bad your life was before their product was available for purchase. But wait, there's more! Then it's the additions of free products that have absolutely nothing to do with the main advertisement.

And of course if you call in the next seven and a half minutes, they will double your offer. Same old, same old for me. Seeing an infomercial pop on the screen is just simply a prompt for me to change the channel. I feel like they are not effective marketing tools because none of them do anything to differentiate themselves.

Are there any other types of advertising that you feel has run its course by now? Why aren't they effective?