Ask HN: Shouldn’t Facebook Ad costs decrease these days if its a bid system?

This is really weird, and somewhat clear to me that the word “Bid” in Facebook’s advertising mechanism is not really true.

Report after report I’ve read that companies have decreased their ad spending dramatically. Even on HN’s homepage the LA Times has reported their ad revenue has been eliminated.

So how can it be that our cost of cost per lead on Facebook increased? We have an Ad Set targeting any American between ages 25 and 55. That is it. You would expect that the cost per lead for that group would decrease IF 60% OF ADVERTISING BUDGETS have frozen. Our cost per lead increased late March until now.

Before it used to be around $2, now it is around $4. I am beginning to realize that the word “Bid” is incorrectly used and believe there is some underlying mechanism in which we are not simply bidding against other advertising platform participants. Has anyone else experienced this? Does this also happen on Google Words?