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“Eventually” is doing a ton of heavy lifting in your argument.

Ads have been a primary revenue driver for news media going back hundreds of years, including to when the US was codifying the civic value of news into its governing principles.

The idea that revenue choice is binary or that if you have to use ads you shouldn’t be in business is a very modern one, and one that’s outside of historical norms.

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The idea that it's wrong to use slavery as a cheap labor force is also modern and outside historical norms. Just because it's historically prevalent doesn't make something right or even good/acceptable. Some things based on historical norms are good. Some clearly aren't. And it seems to me a bit disingenuous to ignore the technological changes and the speed, pervasiveness, and invasiveness with which advertising is now done compared to the historical context being appealed to. Even if one grants that advertising wasn't "as bad" back then, that doesn't make what we have now acceptable.

I’m more commenting on the idea that ads ruin things over time. If that’s the case then it’s a hundreds of year timescale (or news media was ruined long ago).

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