> pair quality content with ads, make money

Huh, the exact opposite happened. Create as much filler content as possible, optimized for SEO, generate thousands of variants to capture search traffic, cover as much of the screen as possible with ads, use tricks to increase page view count, and then make money.

Publishers of quality content have moved to subscriptions, which is a different kind of trouble.

> only content which itself is directly monetizable will be created

We have already been here for a while and it can hardly get any worse.

> it can hardly get any worse

I’ll take that bet.