I'm confused by this, because the websites with the most value to me are those with the fewest ads. Like this one. Or the company website for a tool I bought,

I'm confused by this, because the websites with the most value to me are those with the fewest ads. Like this one. Or the company website for a tool I bought, where I can now go download the manual as a PDF for free. Or some personal blogs I read. Even Gmail, which used to be the classic "great service in exchange for ads", I only use through IMAP clients and honestly don't even know if they show ads in the web view any more. If you mean journalism, that's a business that has been going out of business even with ads. Advertising is just a historical implementation detail for them, like "printed on newsprint", or "tossed on my porch every morning". It does not look like a serious contender for how to make journalism profitable in the long term, any more than "teenager bicycle delivery system" will continue to be the ideal distribution mechanism for weather reports and sports scores.