Why are some (small) spiders so venemous?

OK, so I get that there are a few species of large spiders that eat birds or something, so in that case you’d need enough venom to take down something as big or bigger than you are. But what about spiders like black widows? They eat flies, which as far as I know don’t take a whole lot of venom to kill.

And it’s not like the severe amount of danger is a deterrent to other species, is it? Humans can recognize the small markings if examined, but I doubt that whatever eats spiders (frogs?), or accidentally tramples through a spider’s environment (dogs, cows, etc) notices something like that. They’re not brightly-colored like monarch butterflies or poisonous frogs, and don’t have a warning sound like rattlers, so why was such a huge amount of venom a benefit that was selected for? I can’t imagine that black widow ancestors that were taking down flies with half of the venom were actually doing so much worse than the ones that survived on to today.

As you’ll note, my knowledge of spiders and evolution is shaky at best, so please help fight my ignorance on any facts I got wrong up there.

Spider venoms are very complex and their relatively toxicity to different animals varies widely across the board. The extreme toxicity of some spiders venom to humans is possibly more a roll of the biological dice than evolution in action as I doubt man, or any large (relative to the spider) animals, are any spider’s main predator or prey.

See Brown Recluse Spider Bites: A Complex Problem Wound. A Brief Review and Case Study

I’m not too knowledgeable on spiders, but there is a pretty good rule regarding scorpions…the smaller the species, the more potent the venom.

That’s why those huge black “King” scorpions are safe for pets. I don’t think you are going to see a bark scorpion sold as a pet…having been stung by one, I can tell you that they are dangerous.