I certainly cannot think of a single site that produces professional content without income. I did not say without ads. Ads do mean, however, that I don't have to pay sites directly and the value I get is well in excess of the value I pay by providing ad impressions.
Economics is not a hard subject. Stop being a reductivist. Or stop being a sneering jerk (and let's not pretend you aren't trying to pick a fight with your tone, 'kay?). Both not-reductivist and not-sneering-jerk would be nice, though.
the value I get is well in excess of the value I pay by providing ad impressions.
You don't pay value. You pay a price, which provides value to the recipient. And the value received by the site being low does not mean the price is, since they're both subjective. Which is the problem with ads: for many, the price paid - the loss in privacy - is much greater than the pennies received by the advertiser. I'm glad you value your loss so low, but you shouldn't assume everyone does.
Oh, but this is where you're wrong; you seem to think one only values privacy if they're scared of black helicopters, but that's not the case. I value my privacy because I dislike the everyday intrusions on people's lives. As Raoul Vaneigem wrote, "The economy of everyday life is based on a continuous exchange of humiliations and aggressive attitudes", and tracking is nothing more than an automated and therefore efficient version of this.
Besides, privacy is like vaccination - it also needs herd immunity. If everyone is exposed, the few "important" people who really need it will stand out like a sore thumb.
It has nothing to do with black helicopters. It has to do with your data being utterly unimportant to anybody except yourself. This is why it's only valuable in the aggregate.
They don't have to care. Target didn't care about some random teenager being pregnant, but her father still found out due to their targeted ads. That they don't care is irrelevant.
