How do they make you accept ads? Do they sniff ad blockers or something? And is this “ads or pay” dichotomy related to cookie modals?
You basically cannot enter if you don’t agree or have payed.
Example: https://t3n.de
So for at least that site, it appears that all of the 'protection' is provided by javascript, and if one does not allow the javascript to execute, one receives the article content. There also does not look to be much in the way of ads with the javascript blocked as well.