> What's new is that Google has now managed to alienate ad-supported publishers, their paying customers, as well. Huh? No, "ad-supported" means these publisher

> What's new is that Google has now managed to alienate ad-supported publishers, their paying customers, as well. Huh? No, "ad-supported" means these publishers are getting paid to display these ads, not paying for anything, so they aren't customers. They're getting paid, which means they're suppliers. (What they supply is the eyeballs, yours and mine and everybody else's, that consume the ads.) In business, "the customer" is the one who pays for a good or service they wish to acquire: Here, that's the advertisers.