You’d think they would eventually notice their ROI is terrible…?

the alternative - not buying ads - is worse though. No one knows about you, and you sell nothing. so it ends up being seen as a cost of doing business. that is passed on to paying customers.

I'm really starting to wonder how much of the "ground level" inflation is actually caused by "passing on" the cost of anti-social behaviors to paying customers, as opposed to monetary policy shenanigans.

I hope so but I don't know.