The web isn't a closed platform for a limited number of service. Multiple website are trying to survive without ads, Wikipedia is one of them. Nothing stop them.

Ads allow for content creator that still need to pay rent, to actually produce content while still paying rent. You know like any job.

The one that still can produce without anything, are still free to do it currently and plenty are actually doing it.

I don't think this is a truism.

Sites in the style of BBC/CNN/Fox/Yahoo/etc. may have a tough time with their online content if they aren't able to support those properties with ads.

IME most content that's actually worth the time it takes to consume (e.g., well-composed articles and essays written by field experts) is not ad-supported. A lot is behind paywalls, and still more is provided on non-ad-supported websites. For example, distributed freely by fee-supported professional organizations or else by the author him/her-self as a tool for self-promotion/brand building. I don't see any reason why high-quality content can't survive on non-ad revenue, given that there are plenty of counter-examples.

And that's just considering the ad-supported sites that are actually content-driven. A lot of online advertisement is not supporting original content creation at all.

Content made to promote something, isn't that an ads? Sure that could happen but hell nothing stop ads from being more high quality right now. I much prefer to watch content that's primary goal is to entertain, teach, etc... and not to sell you stuff.

> I don't see any reason why high-quality content can't survive on non-ad revenue, given that there are plenty of counter-examples.

Well nothing stop them to exist right now. The reverse is false though, content funded by ads currently only exist based on that good ad targeting.

Personally I seriously hope Google push more Youtube Red and Google Contributor. Ad work for people that can't pay for it (or don't want to), we only need something for people that doesn't want ads but can pay instead.

If we had real, viable micropayment services, where you could click a mouse button and spend $0.002 to read an in-depth news article or $0.008 to watch a YouTube video (these amounts are probably more than the content owners are getting per-impression from the ad networks), I think ads would mostly die out and these sites would be self-supporting.

1) any pricing that did this would have to replace ctr * ad_pricing(keyword, site) * (1 + VAT) + admin_cost(for keeping track of a billion customers) + cost per transaction from banks (2% + 0.25$ is typical)

So to replace a 1% CTR 5$ keyword ad (anything relating to financials, insurance or credit cards) we're talking a "micro"payment of at least 0.25 + 0.050.2 1.21 = 0.31 EUR. This is ignoring a number of costs (such as chargebacks). (assuming 21% VAT)

And here's how the money gets divided up in such a scenario:

Bank: 17 cents

Government: 10 cents

Site owner: 4 cents

Lowering the amount the site owner gets doesn't really reduce the amount the user pays. Anything less than about 30 cents is a non-starter. If you paid the site owner nothing, it would be 28 cents.

If we go through ad networks instead, and companies pay for ads through bank transactions, bank gets nothing (aside from the fees on business accounts on both sides, which aren't per-transaction costs), and the government gets 8% (assuming 33% profit margin for the ad network, which is high, and 25% corporate tax). If you "avoid" tax like most ad networks do, the government gets very little, 1-2% at most.

2) Starting this up requires violating a Nash-equilibrium. A huge number of people need to seriously damage their own business in order to make this happen before it can happen.

And that's ignoring problems that this would allow governments, banks, courts, ISPs and ... to block content based on controlling the financial system (which is a necessity to combat tax fraud anyway, blocking payments because either courts or governments don't agree with the transaction is something that constantly happens).

You could of course try to get the government to drop 90% of their VAT for internet transactions, and banks to stop charging for payments, and ... but good luck with that.

Basically, your whole argument is "it can't be done within the status quo". No shit, sherlock. If it could be done, someone would have done it already. That's why the status quo has to be changed.