Not who you are replying to, but I do!

What sites are so essential that we couldn't replace them?

Google is an example of an ad-supported site that would be rather hard to replace. And, apparently, they make a ridiculous amount of money per user, so replacing advertising revenue with user payments is going to be expensive -- they'd have to charge you $277 per month, if you believe this:

https://mondaynote.com/the-nytimes-could-be-worth-19bn-inste...

That would imply that I am rendering $277 worth of value to Google each month. I would happily receive that in cash and eschew all Google services, which I mostly try and do anyway for privacy reasons. Where do I sign?

Cuts both ways.

Well, the value you give google is the average probability of purchasing products.

I'm sure that if a large number of companies were able to cut $277 from your average aggregate monthly spending in exchange for a guarantee that you were buying their products, they'd be signing up. Perhaps some sort of subscription service that you couldn't opt out of. You can try doing that as a startup.

I would agree that Google search would be hard to replace, but I think it could be done, and probably done better. But one site is not worth keeping a crappy system in place, IMO.

Ok, so stop using ad supported sites, and convince everyone else to do the same, and the problem will simply go away.

If there are alternatives, I do.