I agree that it's not all bad.

But if I had to choose one or the other, I'd choose no ads.

And that's only comparing "then" to "now". I'm confident that "now" will get worse in the future, making "then" all the more appealing!

I'm all for the idea of small content creators being able to afford to create their work. I wish content creation did not attract so many people who only do it for money, though. Maybe this would be achievable if the rewards were lower. Advertising sucks all the air out of the room for alternative funding mechanisms. If ads were eliminated, there would be other mechanisms.

However, back in reality, I'll concede that (e.g.) Google's massive ad revenue has given them the ability to try a thousand other things, a handful of which will be long-term valuable to the world. But the cost is immense.