I challenge your axiom that there has been an ad-fueled creative explosion. Yes, there has been an explosion in volume and perhaps in drama, but creativity specifically? Above and beyond what already existed in free, OSS, or subscription based media? A return to other models might mean less profits, fewer ultra-wealthy founders and VCs, but I'm not at all convinced that it would lead to less creativity.
There were a huge amounts of niche sites written to answer questions on niche topics. All with the aim of being helpful enough to get google to send them traffic they could monetise with ads. Many of these sites were peoples hobbies which they could further explore or even dedicate themselves to based on the income from their website.
This wouldn't have happened without ads, no other alternative has ever been found that got the author of a website paid while not directly charging the reader.
The web with ads is immensely more useful than the web without, hell without ads there probably wouldn't even be a search engine to find anything on the web and without a search engine nobody would be able to find anything of any use.
> All with the aim of being helpful enough to get google to send them traffic
All? That's such a ridiculous generalization that it's practically a lie. If that's all you remember, then I suggest that your experience has been too short and/or limited. Before Google even existed there were tons of sites that were there for reasons other than ads. (I've been involved with the internet since before it became public BTW, plus Usenet and other things before that, so I have some perspective.) Even after Google became the ad behemoth it is today, plenty of sites flourished while having nothing to do with it. I had my own blog from 2000 until last year, moderately well known in some circles, but neither I nor most of the other bloggers I interacted with had anything to do with ads. There were forums without ads, e-commerce sites without ads (not counting their own), etc. The current situation, where everything seems to be a walled garden or infested with ads, is pretty recent ... and even now, there are plenty of sites that decline to play that game. Like the one we're having this conversation on.
Well I got online around 98ish so I've been around for a while and seen close to around 25 years worth of development, which I'd say is the majority of the webs lifespan.
And I re-iterate, whatever and however many sites there were knocking around on the early internet pale in comparison to the breadth of sites and information that came onto the web fueled by ads when people realised they could fund their hobbies and write about topics they loved at the same time.
It's really very simple, if you can literally get paid to write on your website, you will write more. You will hire people to write with you. This is common sense and it will vastly outpace the output of the contingent who simply wish to write for the sake of it.
Ads supercharged the webs development and I see nothing that could've replaced them, I say that as someone who's never been involved in the ad industry.
> the breadth of sites and information that came onto the web fueled by ads
Confuse correlation with causation much? The internet has certainly grown, but not just because of ads. In some ways it has shrunk because of ads. Innumerable forums and blogs and even social-media sites like MySpace were shunted aside as VC- and ad-funded walled gardens like Facebook became dominant. That's a loss (and I say that as someone who worked at Facebook for a while). As I said, the volume has increased but the creativity hasn't. I'll take ten truly creative people over a hundred YouTube or TikTok "influencer" types any day.
> if you can literally get paid to write on your website, you will write more. You will hire people to write with you. This is common sense
It makes me sad when I see people who can't even imagine a motive other than profit. Seems particularly common here, and I've learned not to engage with such. Have a nice day.
> It's really very simple, if you can literally get paid to write on your website, you will write more
And most of what people write in order to get ad revenue is pure garbage. And even the stuff that isn't garbage is constrained by what advertisers approve of.
