That logic would work great if Google were the publisher. Unfortunately, there are a lot of companies that think they are “publishers” but are actually meaningl

That logic would work great if Google were the publisher. Unfortunately, there are a lot of companies that think they are “publishers” but are actually meaningless now that Google is effectively a publisher, except that they don’t pay for content. Those companies—newspaper, magazines, basically anything middlebrow but not for rich people—are all getting cut out because why would you pay to staff Runners World or Car & Driver when you know who runs (because they post pictures of themselves running) and who wants a car (because they search for it)? So, yes, in the end, the ad market has a certain size, independent of the advertising companies in it, but now the link between that market and actual writers making actual content people want is broken and everything is turning to shit.