Meta posting record profits this quarter, blowing out analysts expectations. All while those of us who rely on Meta for direct response results are slashing budgets all year. Is Meta just killing off those of use who rely on them for direct response? It seems the big guys who are just running ads for awareness are now all in on advertising on social media, complete with flooding the feed with UGC and inflating UGC costs. I can't imagine Meta ads are generating more returns for advertisers than ever. It feels like we're just competing with 8-9 figure marketing budgets that don't even need to count their ROAS because they're happy to just run ads for awareness. But maybe the switch to AI is giving better returns than ever for these massive budgets? Not trying to bitch in this post, I just want to honestly understand if this is the new norm post-Andromeda and we need to start looking at Meta ads as something supplemental to running a healthy business, not the life blood for growth. It's always been like that of course but this feels different.