Not sure how the relationship between "smart" and "with money" plays out here. Last time I checked, ublock was completely free.
That aside, yep, it's hard to ignore how incredibly dumb the lowest common denominator appears to be - if viewed as a reflection of those ads.
So the ads that do get shown are exactly the low quality crappy ads that appeal to the great unwashed.
This is certainly evident to me on Facebook for instance. The very first ads that get shown do not have the benefit of the marketing analytics about me so they're very low quality ones like the ads in the article.
The second wave (after about 5 seconds) are vastly improved and often touch on my interests or have some connection to friends interests or real current news events.