[judge2020]

Would you be fine to pay for a search engine that does that, then? Without a direct payment or ads, that search wouldn’t be possible.

Imagine how many people primarily use Desktop YouTube and have been watching since 2006, but have always had an ad blocker and have never seen a single video ad. There’s probably actual hundreds of millions there that have been ‘lost’ over the decade. It’s basically profiteering with the only difference being that Google doesn’t care because allowing ad-blockers increases their market dominance.

[gfxgirl]

Some x-googler's started a paid search engine

https://neeva.com/

They're hoping you'll pay $50 a year