Technically (and by that, I mean if you get into multivariate, intertemporal, multi-product auction theory, so very technical), “customers,” i.e., users seeing

Technically (and by that, I mean if you get into multivariate, intertemporal, multi-product auction theory, so very technical), “customers,” i.e., users seeing irrelevant ads, means they don’t get to see relevant ones, don’t click. Those customers would waste their bandwidth and scrolling time, but they rarely pay per Mb and scroll fast. They might fat-finger an ad (that happens surprisingly often when you start looking into it) and waste both their time closing windows and tabbing back to where they were. Most Meta’s “customers,” the advertisers, see a higher number of ads shown per client acquired. That doesn’t really change their decision to advertise, and their budget as long as the cost per client (click to the site or converted client, depending) is the same. Therefore, I’d argue users aren’t that impacted (unless you count not seeing a relevant ad as a bad thing, which I would, but that’s controversial); advertisers have less impact than they could, but it’s not that it costs them, as much they don’t pay for something they didn’t get. Meta is the one loosing 4% of their potential revenues. But admittedly, it’s a wider, complex, integrated system. I’d rather not feel like an increasingly large chunk of it is gambling, tax evasion, and human trafficking.