The amount of money is a single metric and not what we should use to base every decision on or understand an entire complex issue from a single source (money). The Russian ads were very well crafted to be easily sharable and to be viral. The amount of money they spent has little to do with how much influence they have.
Your entire post is "whataboutism". What about the Americans being bad? What about CNN being bad? What about ABC being bad? What about most Russians just trying to make ends meet? What about MSNBC? What about Fox news?
I don't care.
The Russians are actively doing this on Twitter, right now. The others are bad too. That doesn't mean anything at all about this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
Whataboutism, a classic Russian distraction tactic, by the way.
if you compare the amount of money allegedly spent by "the russians" VS the amount of money spent by "the americans" themselves, talking about "the russian takeover" of Twitter or Facebook is pure hysteria.
Americans need to stop blaming the Russians for all their problems. Most Russians could not give a damn about US, most are way too busy making hands-meet right now.
The Russians didn't create or foster a divisive environment where everything is about insignificant petty differences. The Russians do not own CNN, ABC, MSNBC or Fox news who are making billions out of exploiting american divisions on every matter possible. The Russians didn't create that society of outrage and entertainment, the Russians didn't shape american society.