I still find ads questionable, even if I rely on them. If I spend, say, $100 on ads, after printing and shipping, I make, say, $10 dollars in profit. Meta just made $100 dollars in profit, thanks to my hard work that earned me a fraction of that. It's hard to swallow and fathom what an amazing business they're running.

Same goes for F2P games. They pour millions (billions) into marketing games, with crazy small profit margins. When a mobile game company earns a million, Meta earns 10 millions (or more). Apple opens up the platform for 3rd party appstores with only 15% cut instead of 30%. Where does this new profit margin go? Into ads. Now companies can afford putting more money into ads, to outcompete others. Others follow suit. Instead of a million, the company now earns 1.01 millon in profit. Meta earns 11 million.

This isn't the ad platforms' fault, but I still find it somehow wrong.

Edit: typos

I understand your argument, but part of this comparison is between Net profits and Revenue. While it cost Meta close to zero to have that ad space, it does cost meta money to run their platform. It is the same with any good old classified ads, or even free newspaper.

Meta dont actually dictate the value of ad space, they are largely market driven. Even though Meta may try to manipulate it to their advantage. Had they not been able to provide positive returns for those ads, they would not been able to continue and charge those price.

Also I think this is somewhat US specific. I dont know if that is still the case but US digital ads works really well. And they cost far higher than European or other part of the world.