I still think that any content anyone is paying for you to see is necessarily spam.

I don't agree. I think the chief problem with advertising is that it is extremely repetitive. I'm not, in principle, opposed to being informed about new things relevant to my interests existing. In a world that is completely oversaturated with content, it is hard to gain traction on something new with word-of-mouth alone, even if it is of very high quality. There is a point to being informed about something existing for the first time (maybe I'll use it), and there is a reason why people would have to pay to make use of that informational system (the barrier to entry is necessary to make the new thing stand out in the ocean of garbage).