You’re describing socialism (wealth redistribution to be exact). At this point, just make that money a tax and give it to the publishers directly. Cut out the middlemen.

Well, what is the difference, the ad budget fraction of the price is like a tax. I think given a choice most people would prefer to get their stuff a bit cheaper and not contribute to the ad budget. But we pay it and then the companies hand the money out to various parties to display ads creating the possibility of running a business on ad revenue. And in many cases I can ignore ads, I can not look at billboards, I can switch to a different channel during the commercial break, I can flip over the ad pages in newspapers and magazines but they still get paid. Only on the internet have we decided to only pay for ads when somebody actually looks at them. I just asked for the same thing on the internet, pay for the inclusion on the website, whether someone actually sees it or not. Not sure how that is socialism and wealth redistribute.