Paid content on the web has been bad because there has been a glut of free content.<p>But if we look at the history of print, paid content did quite well for a very long time. Books, you might recall, were pretty popular. Many magazines and newspapers used to make a great deal of their revenues from subscription fees.<p>Video similarly seems to have worked well when paid: movies have always been profitable. The recent &quot;golden age of television&quot; has been attributed to the increasing volume of paid content; the ad-supported stuff is seen as lower quality.<p>I use an ad blocker because I&#x27;m not interested in participating in a system that is based around manipulation of people. I pay for some media both old (e.g., Economist, NYT) and new (e.g., via Patreon). The system of ad-supported print content is certainly in trouble, and if I can help along its demise by using an ad blocker, I&#x27;m glad to do it. It&#x27;ll be exciting to see what comes next.