I think this short exchange highlights the problem really well.

Most people are uninterested in paying for those services, in part because the internet has trained them that information is free and in part because of fairly extreme polarization in opinions that seems to be everywhere.

Arguing that people should pay for the information they consume now is well and good, but that information was something the news companies were giving away for free not that many years ago, reinforcing the idea that information should be free.

If there going to make money long term, they're going to have to find a new way to monetize. People are actively blocking the ads and don't want to pay for yet another subscription to content they don't access that often.

> going to have to find a new way to monetize

Or work on the old way. Convince Mark “Philanthropist” Zuckerberg to start an Antiadblock Foundation:

  uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

> news companies were giving away for free not that many years ago

Haven't either ads or paywalls/subscriptions always been the primary way that news companies paid for journalists/sysadmins/servers, etc? What was the funding source 'not that many years ago' if not ads or paywalls/subscriptions?

> Arguing that people should pay for the information they consume now is well and good

Is arguing such a thing "well and good"? I'm not complaining, but my GP comment merely asking how the other user expected the sites he wants to get content from will pay their costs (as they said ads and paywalls/subscriptions were out) got downvoted - I'm not even sure that goes as far as arguing that people should help pay for content that they want to receive.