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Are we sure they were higher quality? They estimated in 2024 that 10% of their revenue was from fraudulent ads or ads that should be banned based on their own rules.

https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortu...

This is nothing new, profiting off of fraud and abuse has been the name of the game for all the big advertisers from the beginning.

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My vague recollection from 10 or 15 years ago was higher quality ads.

I commented in another thread recently that almost 15 years ago on a high traffic site we were full of obvious scam ads, tons of fake world of Warcraft clones with busty characters asking you to play, tons of you’re the 1 millionth visitor click here to claim your prize, download buttons. Even the occasional penis enlargement pills and stuff would come through. I really think even if the scale is maybe amping up, things weren’t much better 20 years ago, the web was just smaller, fewer people were paying attention, and the folks who were there had grown up learning to spot that stuff from the beginning.

like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p0pdiTOlzw

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