I think Kagi is kind of making this happen currently with search. Not sure how their adoption number are going, but people are willing to pay $$ for better search with no "sponsored content" rising to the top.

I'm hesitant about a lot of this stuff because it's very easy to get to a place where we let net neutrality degrade even more than it already has. Part of the way that platforms indoctrinate us to accept that paying extra for quality of service or "fast lanes" for specific content types are "necessary" is to degrade the existing experience so much that it seems inevitable.

I swear by Kagi and will never go back (until they inevitably start including ads after a bad earnings report)

Good catch. I didn't even think about the fast lanes fiasco. I don't know why businesses have decided that since they have connected to the internet that the internet owes them.

It should be a public utility. It should be as ad free as reasonable. It should not track you.

The internet should be a lot of things that it currently isn't all because rent-seeking money and power grubbing bastards have too many of the strings and love pulling them like they're pulling their puds.