I'm surprised the author focused singularly on the "funding the open web" stance, and did not discuss the alleged negative externalities created by advertising-driven business incentives. The top comments of the blog comments (e.g. https://www.jefftk.com/p/why-i-work-on-ads#lw-Nvd9ZHJLxZpNZD...) also point this out.
For instance, The Netflix documentary "The Social Dilemma" discusses these at length, and it forms a lot of the political zeitgeist around regulation of adtech companies (e.g. driving polarization, radicalization, depression and such).
> The question is, what is the alternative? I see two main funding models:
It's possible to simultaneously believe that ads are currently the effective way to lower barrier of entry to accessing content, and also believe that ads are a detriment to people's mental health.
One alternative would be an ad-supported system that performs less-personalized ad-targeting, and in doing so influences people's behavior less but generates enough revenue to keep the lights on with a reasonable profit margin. The government has laws for regulating natural monopolies like this, where they prevent utility companies from price gouging but grant them a certain amount of margin.