>I hate ads too, but you’re going to have to pay for the content somehow.

But this logic is flawed. Suffering through an ad does not "pay for" anything. The only way you can pay for content via advertising is to buy a product or service you wouldn't have bought otherwise (and probably don't need), or to buy product A instead of product B (when product A might in fact be better). Advertising means (1) psychological manipulation and (2) mindless consumption with all its attendant negative externalities. This is what pays for content in the advertising business model. Hence the aversion so many have to it. Hence why invocations of morality in its defense always fall flat.

Advertising itself does not pay for anything.