Come on, that's not fair. They only started playing with monetization strategies a few years ago. Not only that but they are the de facto standard of social media online. That's a pretty big asset that can be monetized in lots of creative ways.
Myspace was the de facto standard in 2005. Napster was the de facto standard for filesharing in 98.
Facebook is quickly becoming the next Myspace. By leveraging it as a platform, they're ceding control on UX. People left Myspace because most pages were ugly and blared shitty music at you. I can't count how many "friends" I've removed for sending farmville and mobwars invitations, or having astrology crap automatically posted to my news feed, or, or, or...
Facebook is facing a position where monetization means shrinking its social graph, which isn't particularly enviable for the King of Social.
I agree with you, targeting on facebook is very poor right now. I can target those who has liked a certain page, while I would like to be able to target anyone who is a member of any group with my keyword in title, etc.
new facebook redesign encourages people to add more information that matters (like employers, languages you speak, etc. not what music you like and movies you watch) about them which will enable even better targeting.
advertisers will love this for higher conversion rate and users will love it(and less ignore ads) because they will see more relevant ads that are interesting to them.
