[AlexandrB]

This situation is similar to dumping[1]. The only reason people aren't willing to pay for content is that there's always another company willing to give it away for "free" by leveraging ads. The reason that's economical is that all-pervasive tracking inflates the value of ad inventory and allows for a lot of additional "value" to be created even if the visitor doesn't click on an ad. If some of the most abusive adtech practices were flat out illegal paid services could compete again because a profitable, "free" alternative would not be possible.

The other form of dumping comes from tech companies operating in the red but surviving on investment dollars. Frankly, this is a result of growing wealth and income inequality that leaves investors with few avenues for growth outside of ad-funded moonshots as consumers aren't able to drive growth like they used to due to flat income.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)

Edit: Imagine a world where the average consumer makes $10k more per year, then turns around and spends some of that on online services. You now have a situation where the interests of the user and web service provider are aligned. The user is now the customer, not the product.