What are they doing with all this data tracking because it sure isn't giving me relevant ads. In addition to the often noted situation where you buy something online and then get ads for that thing you already bought, I routinely see totally irrelevant ads and recommendations.

I've been on Facebook since around 2003. I've had an Amazon account for even longer. Their ads and recommendations for me are terrible.

Two recent examples from facebook: they recommended I join a group for progressive christian asian-americans. I am not christian or of asian descent. More recently they gave me an ad for maximizing tax right offs for nannies. I have no children and make way too little to even consider hiring a nanny.

Facebook has my picture. They know my relationship status. They have the text of all my posts where I have never mentioned children. They even know my occupation. Whatever they are doing with this data isn't working.

I am curious given that I have an Ad-blocker for most websites and am not on FB. How do you even see ads? Have FB et al found a workaround for ad-blockers?

Mobile? Hard to block in-app ads without a pi-hole.

I avoid apps where I can, but it’s not always avoidable/practical.

Or at work if you’re forbidden from installing “unapproved” software.

Good point on mobile. I use Adguard Pro on mobile after reading about it on HN. Yet to test Pi-hole. The work part is unavoidable, I guess.