Maybe a middle ground with a button for "I don't have a subscription for this site, don't show non-free content from it to me again".

One should not need to use an account for Google to basically work.

ChatGPT requires an account to work at all

So since there are serial killers it's OK for me to stab you as long as I stop there, right?

I don't see the context here but if you want: guess why I never used it.

DDG allows to to set toggles like this without logging in.

I for one am willing to meet them halfway on that. Trouble is, they won't even give me 5% of the obvious options I'd find valuable as a user.

hahah, giving the user control! Funny stuff.

Which isn't such a foreign concept for them, there's a "no toll roads" option for driving directions on google maps. Why can't search be the same?

Right? It doesn't have to fully elide the result even. If the top of the SERP said "3 results hidden because they are paid sites on your non-subscribed list" I would appreciate the info.

They used to have an option to permanently block sites from your google results. They quietly dropped it even before they dropped reader.

They had a simple rule that they index what users can see and if you try to cheat your way around that you get ranked down. Sticking to that for everyone would have been an iron clad defense against monopoly accusations. Instead they chose to help certain corporations (or at least corporations with certain business models) present different content to the bot and users.