Google is an example of an ad-supported site that would be rather hard to replace. And, apparently, they make a ridiculous amount of money per user, so replacing advertising revenue with user payments is going to be expensive -- they'd have to charge you $277 per month, if you believe this:
That would imply that I am rendering $277 worth of value to Google each month. I would happily receive that in cash and eschew all Google services, which I mostly try and do anyway for privacy reasons. Where do I sign?
Well, the value you give google is the average probability of purchasing products.
I'm sure that if a large number of companies were able to cut $277 from your average aggregate monthly spending in exchange for a guarantee that you were buying their products, they'd be signing up. Perhaps some sort of subscription service that you couldn't opt out of. You can try doing that as a startup.
I would agree that Google search would be hard to replace, but I think it could be done, and probably done better. But one site is not worth keeping a crappy system in place, IMO.
https://mondaynote.com/the-nytimes-could-be-worth-19bn-inste...