But to make money those sites have to show ads

If I ran a seal-clubbing business I'd have to club seals to make money. The whole argument is that those sites don't exist to provide a good service yet sadly need to show ads to keep the lights on.

I’m just wondering to whom those ads get shown… not arguing that anyone should turn off their adblocker and keep them running

They are working hard to trick people into clicking on their links, but won’t most people who click those links be running an ad blocker? Are unsophisticated web users searching for questions answered on stack overflow?