[EncomLab]

"So most content you consume isn't funded by advertising."

You are conflating the content and the delivery method. It's like saying "most of the stuff you buy can be delivered by a bicycle, so interstate highways are not important.

[DrScientist]

And who pays for the highway? The people paying their ISP bills - who did so because they wanted to watch the BBC/ Netflix etc , or shop at Amazon, read a newspaper online, bank online or play online games, or work from home - or the content you consume - all of which doesn't require advertising.

Sure Youtube and tik-tok consume huge bandwidth - but I'd argue if that was the only thing available on the internet then people wouldn't be paying their ISP bills.

The internet was growing massively before Google worked out how to make serious money with online ads.