The ads are a window into a blatantly illegal underground economy that Meta is not only failing to moderate, but is actively profiting from and injecting into users’ feeds.
Yeah, there will always be dark markets. But it's nothing like, nor do I think it ever will be like it was in its hay day. I don't check regularly, but last I looked these markets have nothing close to the user base of even the days of agora/dream/Wallstreet. You could buy quantities of stuff at user level for real cheap. As they started cracking down, it all started to turn into bulk because no one wanted to deal with transaction frequency risk, I suspect it's the same today.
I was on the original Silk Road back in the day, those were the golden years. I don't fuck with drugs anymore because even the non-hard stuff is completely tainted with fetanyl these days.