Ad-funded business models make it impossible for the people to "vote with their wallets", so all of the good things about any kind of market dynamics are removed, and we are left only with its disadvantages.
- It treats everyone as "eyeballs", removing any need for a content producer to care about quality. As long as it generates clicks it goes. It has turned even the most reputable of media channels into tabloids.
- By having no regard for quality, it's a tragedy of the commons.
- By removing any chance of nuance, it makes all of the audience to be bucketed into "pass/filter" algorithms, and the only concern is to make sure that the content is so bland and innocuous that no one within their bubble reach can complain about it.
- It has taken mass-consumerism and general public conformity to 11.
- Big Tech turn all of that crap into profit no matter what.
- It is feeding and coddling the coming and current generation of techies into lame drones with no imagination and will to affect actual change. It's creating an army of people who think that the status quo is good.
I don't think it is too much of a stretch to think of how the "ad supported" content economy is correlated with the increased polarization of people, the growing tribal divide and the isolation of individuals. I honestly think that we should be treating the majority of "ad supported" websites as heavy polluters of our minds and our societies.