It’s not an exploitation for monetary gain, it’s an exchange of services. Do you think those massive servers they got are running for free? Aside from hardware, facilities and electricity, they have to pay programmers, accounting, management, cleaning services, etc. etc.
People have to get over the fact, that this is how the world works - and also the only way the world as we know it can work.
If they aren’t above illegaly selling your data, then aren’t above illegaly collecting your data, even if you ticked a little “I do not consent” box. I fail to see, how this change can be anything but positive.
Targeted ads has become such a boogey man, that you all can no longer view these things rationally. There is nothing wrong with companies wanted to get their products advertized to the most likely customers and there is nothing inherently wrong with a platform using your activity to see what ads you are most likely interested in.
The potential issue with it, is your personal data leaking everywhere and being assimilated by questionable companies who could create a psychological profile of you, that knows you better than you know yourself.
If they truely only let companies target you, by presenting them an internally grouped collective of likely customers in which you happen to be included, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. Same goes for the newest change in how chrome manages ads.
I hate the 2020s. Can we just go back a couple years, back when meme pages didnt have sticks up their arses?
Nicer UI. Not exactly sure how the whole thing works, I think you are somehow able to enable/disable certain add-ons and from what I can gather extendes has a few more. Tl;dr: It’s better, consider giving it a try.