If I could snap my fingers and remove all of the paywalled sites from the internet, I would. People continue to post them, and all they do is jam the signal. I should be compensated for time wasted clicking on these links and then again on the back button.
Until the industry adopts either microtransactions or federated publishing, I won't pay or sign up for most content. It's too inconvenient, and information is nearly infinite. You're just making the opportunity cost differential higher. I have better ways to spend my time.
And speaking to the advertising issue, I've never personally bought anything from an ad. They're annoying viruses being leveraged against my consciousness that I didn't consent to. That's bad enough without mentioning the tracking and deceptive practices they employ.
The whole economic model is a race to the bottom and is fucked. I'm sorry you're working in such a painful industry.
Look at what streaming did to the music industry. It's convenient. I pay monthly and have no ads. Do this please.
Spotify and the likes addressed a need in the market.
Advertising is still completely adequate method for compensating a lot of publishers.
Others, who don't mind giving the aggregators 30%, provide you with the ability to subscribe from Apple Newstand and similar services. There's been a bunch of services that tried to do content access like this... uptake was completely dismal.
No one is obligated to provide you with content on your terms, other than the government.