I subscribe to Sound on Sound, a magazine about music technology. I pay them $90 a year, but I also whitelist them in my ad blocker, because the ads complement the content. If I'm reading a review of a synthesizer or an article about how to record electric guitars, it's really easy to serve relevant ads with good click-through and conversion rates without intensive tracking. Both the content and the advertising serve to enhance my enjoyment of a hobby that I care deeply about.

A lot of publishers are really going to struggle post-GDPR, because their content is clickbaity and vapid. It isn't worth paying for and it isn't relevant to the readers' lives. It exists because it briefly hijacks your attention, which can be profitably monetised by ad networks that invasively track your activities online.

Some good publishers are going to get caught in the crossfire which is unfortunate, but I think that the overall effect will be net positive. If publishers can't sell their ad inventory without recourse to surveillance, they need to seriously examine whether their business model is honorable and whether they are offering something of real value.