My Life on Facebook as a Woman and Why Social Network Advertising Doesn't Work

I agree entirely. First of, I am just seeing a very limited number of ads on the left hand side of the screen and they are all dating related - kind of disheartening - but this may come from being a young single guy.

Is anyone from different age groups seeing any different ads?

Facebook doesn't target most of their ads the people creating them do. Go log onto facebook, scroll to the bottom click advertise then create an ad.

You can to target region, gender, age, and a few other things(keywords, status, etc).

The sales team probably sell very few of the ads on their outside of the huge corporate branding ones. The ones you see on the side of your profile are mostly paid for and targeted by individuals.

By default, I block ads. If I find the site to be useful (the litmus test is "will I return?") then I unblock the ads. Why do I do this? There are far too many digg/reddit link whores that for all intents and purposes add no value to the Internet, but have tricked me into clicking on their links. The sites that are linked usually repackage somebody else's work into their template, and have manipulated the system into getting people to click on their links. In some cases, it is flat out copyright infringement. And if you load the ads on their page, they have won. In fact, they'd probably use the ad revenue to help legally defend themselves if the original authors of the content they copied were to sue them. It's quite despicable and that's why I can reconcile blocking ads. Like I said, I unblock ads on websites that I find useful.

If you find a website useful, I think it is much better to act in good faith and put up with the ads. If the ads bother you, then try to find an alternative website for that purpose, or contact the authors and present your dilemma. Perhaps they will offer a subscription service sans advertisements, or tone the existing ads down a notch.