So, here's the crux of the problem.

The internet as it is now and as it has existed for the vast majority of its life is an ad supported system.

The ad money is drying up because of several things:

AI is taking away click throughs to websites meaning they don't get ad click throughs or impressions. They run ads to keep the lights on and they are being starved of the engagement that ads pay for.

People have less spending power than they have ever had. Ads don't mean anything if people can't afford products.

There is a pivot to trying to get rich people to buy goods and services but even though they have most of the wealth they don't need most goods and services. This means the best way to get them to spend money is to have them invest to grow that money.

Ad companies require people to buy the goods and services that they are advertising in order to continue to pay for ads and ad aggregation.

A large subset of the populace really does hate ads and also wants things for free. They do not want to be told that nothing is free and ads are how a lot of the internet makes money.

The alternative to ad supported internet is data supported internet but people really really hate data brokers and data brokers mainly sell or offer up the use of data to three groups. Other data brokers/ad aggregators, the government/military industrial complex, and criminals.

So naturally companies that used to sustain themselves on ad aggregation now do so by pursuing government contracts. Because the line must go up.