Assuming making ads illegal actually gets rid of them (a big assumption), content providers and search engines would have to move to a different revenue stream.

Assuming making ads illegal actually gets rid of them (a big assumption), content providers and search engines would have to move to a different revenue stream. They could charge users directly: (1) Micro-subscriptions over a long time span, something like $1/month (2) Micro-payments; something like $0.03 per day of use. Transaction fees hurt #1 less, so I think it's more likely. Probably bundled over a year. The degree to which losing ads hurts content providers depends on how much ad revenue needs to be replaced by direct payments. If an average user sees ~3000 ads a month (just a guess) and the CPM is $10, sites will need to convince users to pay $30/month for what was previously "free". The lack of ads would reduce users' mobile bandwidth costs by up to 50% [1], which does free up money, but direct payments would probably weigh more heavily on the user's mind. So a lot of sites with perceived low value would lose their advertising revenue and not be able to replace it. On the other hand, if each user only generates $3 in ad revenue per month, the transition is a lot easier. Premium content services that people already pay subscriptions for (magazines, Netflix, etc.) would do fine. Content services with insufficient quality or breadth of content to support a subscription model would either (a) give up, (b) continue as a hobby rather than a business, or (c) provide free content to build an audience with the hope of becoming a paid service in the future. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/01/business/cost-of-mobile-ads.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/01/business/cost...