Publishing's seen many business models over the years. Information is hard, for a number of reasons, and advertising has been utilized for mass-media for much of the past century (longer in print).

There's a lot wrong with ads: http://redd.it/24107v

I should add to that list "weaponized clickbait". Advertising directly promotes noxious content anti-patterns: http://redd.it/23twec

One alternative is syndication via a broadband / media tax: http://redd.it/1uotb3

Phil Hunt (Pirate Party UK) has a similar proposal: http://redd.it/1vknhc