On the content side, it isn't financially beneficial to invest in higher quality content or presentation. Most websites that aren't outsourcing their content to $10 writers on UpWork are already running on razor thin margins. Outside of a handful of big name publishers (the NYTs and Economists of the world), paid subscriptions are unviable for most.

The lack of innovation on the web can be directly attributed to the lack of advertising money on the web - outside of Google and FB, of course.