This in absolute spades, and I wish there was a way to elevate comments to top-level posts sanely.

But yes: the original Web served its (non-profit-motivated) creators and readers. The past two decades of advertising-based web has served publishers and advertisers, precisely as you note. LLM is mixing that up for the moment but I sincerely doubt that it will last.

That said, I welcome the coming ad/pub pain with unbridled glee.