That would admittedly be an easier argument if online adverts weren't hideous, intrusive, slow, distracting, bandwidth-chewing, performance-destroying, malware-delivering, privacy-violating abominations.
What stuff? Clickbait news and freemium games? I don't think anybody has to, or even should support their existence. I think the viability of their business models only undermines premium content.
It is naive to think that companies wouldn't want to show ads to paid members. It may not be necessary for survival, but companies do love money.
It used to be, back in the olden days of pay-TV, that you'd get HBO, etc in order to not have commercials shown to you. I haven't seen HBO in like forever, but last I recall, they ended up showing tons of "commercials" for stuff they were playing, were going to show, up-and-coming things, "sister station" things, etc.
Basically, yeah - you didn't get to hear about the latest and greatest form of Tide or Folgers - but instead you would get anything and everything about HBO and other channels.
Great.
Today - I don't know what you see. I know for Hulu and other streaming services, it was peddled the same way (pay to get no ads). Now you pay - and you still get ads. Thanks.
So I've personally done what they don't want you to do, but they can't stop me: I've stopped watching everything. I don't even go to the movies if I can't help it. The magazines I purchase are super-niche so I don't see any mainstream adverts that way (Nuts and Volts, Servo, 2600). I don't listen to the radio. UB-Origin on my browsers (and with all this being discussed, I'm going to look into switching back to FF as well, and setting up a pi-hole).
They still manage to sneak some crap in - and I can't help to see those billboard ads and other things as I drive down the road or whatnot. Amazon also has some ads, and some things I subscribe to require you to see the ads to see the content, but that stuff is usually off to the side and just "filters out" into background noise at best (and most of the time it's for products I either don't want or can't afford; for some reason, I get a bunch of ads for Rolex watches and BMW cars - you'd think they'd run one commercial for a Unimog, but nooooo).
Ultimately, I've more or less opted out of consumer popular culture. This crap being discussed, and numerous other issues I see and experience, is just pushing me further off the road.
For instance, I intend my next "smart phone" will be one that I build and code myself. It won't look very pretty, and I'll still be tied to a service provider and all that entails, but even if all I have are SMS and voice calling, that'll be enough for me.
I'm also in the "slow process" of rebuilding/refurbishing an old Toughbook for general usage, but that is also competing with a couple of other projects, a refurbished TRS-80 Model 100, and a custom built "cyberdeck" I've been contemplating and buying the parts for.
Maybe go back to using BBS's too, or some other "dark web" niche of the internet - I dream of a place of freedom, the network I knew back when I started in the 1980s. Not this walled-off mess we're walking...no running...towards.
Websites will never stop tracking just because you pay for the service.