It’s true that there are market opportunities for paid content, just like there are market opportunities for lawn mowing. They just aren’t on the scale of the ad business. If you’re good with lawns, you can make a little money doing chores or more money selling lawn mowers.

Advertising is often annoying, but the amount of friction it brings to a transaction is still a lot less than per-unit transactions. You’re not buying a regular stream of CDs or downloads or subscribing to any music service, right? And yet music is a big part of many of your transactions. It’s with you at the grocery store, at the bar, in the car, on the subway. In all those contexts it is affecting your purchases. *Those* purchases are the pool of cash that advertisers live on.