I used the tire wipers for a couple years on my touring rig. It had the file-tread Compass "barlow pass" tires. Like Gravelkings and Pari-Motos, basically. I never got a flat, but the noise slowly drove me crazy, so I bent them away from the tires and eventually removed them altogether.
Well, the noise didn't exactly directly drive me crazy. I could ignore it well enough when I was alone, and secure in my belief that they really did something. I was first really made conscious of the noise when I was at French Fender Day and people kept asking me what was that sound my bike was making, to which I had to apologetically reply that they were tire wipers and then have a purely conjectural debate about their utility. Having the same conversation over and over again when there were much nicer things to talk about was what really drove me to remove them!
I commuted on the same set of tires for three years without tire wipers and only recently got my first flat in the back one. For what that's worth! We don't have goatheads in new england, and boston suburbs are crazy about street sweeping (which goes by some draconian schedule that I think is just a scheme to squeeze non-homeowners who are forced to park on the street for parking ticket money). No joke, I heard that somerville pays their entire parks & rec budget with parking ticket money. I guess the side effect is that I don't need tire wipers because they sweep up the glass on the even side of the road on Tuesdays but only when the first Tuesday of the month is an even number, and on the odd side otherwise but that happens on Wednesdays, except when there's a holiday and then it gets pushed to the third Thursday .. I think?
I never park there, I just ride my bike through.