[manigandham]

He never said they were synonymous. He also mentions ads - and the technology that makes them work - have played a part. Perhaps you should read the sentence you quoted again.

Advertising pays for most content on the internet, that's the "free" part as most consumers experience it. The rest is about the technical advances that have been made in building out modern adtech companies and infrastructure, and what those companies have then gone on to contribute afterwards.

[sametmax]

We had plenty of content on the web, if you make user count / content amount ratio, before it was overloaded with ads.

I spent hours a day on the net in 2000, and we had very few ads.

Even when google started showing ads, it was very discreet. No pop ups, modals, auto playing videos, invasive trackers and fake comments.