There was the original idea of microtransactions, where you could buy some credit, say $10, and every time you read an article, the author would get fraction of a cent. Or you’d need to manually approve it, such as with a like.
Of course companies saw a good idea and ran it into the ground, so now microtransactions mean something very different, and in their stead there are subscriptions for everything.
Maybe my memory doesn’t go quite as far. But still, I believe adblockers didn’t take off in such a huge ways until we’ve seen all those popups, malware and other shit on a massive scale.