I've been idly wondering if it would be so bad if advertising on the web simply wasn't profitable. Losing search engines seems like the biggest loss to me, and

I've been idly wondering if it would be so bad if advertising on the web simply wasn't profitable. Losing search engines seems like the biggest loss to me, and admittedly it's a doozy. But otherwise, it's not immediately obvious to me that the web is better for all the ad-funded content on it in the first place.