Readable copy for mobile users:

Two myths currently limit our collective imagination: the myth that advertising is the only possible business model for online companies, and the myth that it’s too late to change the way platforms operate. On both points, we need to be a little more creative.

Or we could just do the straightforward thing: tax ads.

Not seeing how this would stop a state-level actor intent on engaging in a disinformation campaign, they'd just have their proxies pay the tax.

It would shift more of the web to non-ad-funded. People would get more of their info from venues without ads carrying disinformation, from whatever source.

> It would shift more of the web to non-ad-funded.

or it would just shift more of the web to non-funded.

Ads are taxed already.

It's clearly not the only business model, it's just been proven time and time again to be a profitable one for certain classes of products.

You can make an argument that it's the only one that succeeds when pitted against the other models in the market. Micropayments have been tried and haven't yet succeeded at the necessary scale. Paywalls have had only very limited success. Ads are the only thing we've so far found that can scale a site to the level of Google or Facebook.

This is both a problem and an opportunity.

> Ads are the only thing we've so far found that can scale a site to the level of Google or Facebook.

That sounds like an argument against the ad model, not for it.