From the creator side, the internet sidesteps the need for the huge investments needed by all other content-delivery systems. No need to print thousands or mill

From the creator side, the internet sidesteps the need for the huge investments needed by all other content-delivery systems. No need to print thousands or millions of books. No need to set up a TV or radio station, or a movie or recording studio, or convince someone who owns that infrastructure to publish your stuff. From the consumer side, the only investment is an Internet connection and the equipment needed to access it. More expensive than a single book or a movie ticket, but practically limitless once you have it. So yeah, no one wants to pay. I'm surprised that anyone pretends to be surprised by that. Advertisers are parasites. They need a host to survive. Almost no one cares if they don't survive, including the content creators and the companies with products to be advertised, if they can figure out how to make money without them. There's the rub. Your busker analogy is actually perfect, by the way. The content is freely available because the busker chose to make it so in an effort to get an audience. Then the busker is outraged when someone doesn't pay? Under what theory of justice is the busker outraged when people take him up on his offer of free content?