> but it doesn't change the fact that starving content producers of micro ad revenue goes against their wishes which in most cases deprives them of their sole revenue source

Choice of revenue source is, well, a choice. It's not like we're talking about some poor third-world kids, for whom the only choice is between starvation and building ad-powered content farms. It's all just people who asked themselves, "how can I make me some money?", and out of countless of possible business models, chose this particular one, which is giving stuff away for free, attaching a malicious secondary payload to it, and hoping that this secondary payload will generate some money.

> No the web is not a social contract, it's a combination of technologies.

It's that combination of technologies that create this contract. Those technologies create a particular platform, with particular set of rules. It provides ways of giving things away, as well as asking for compensation. It provides ways of saying "strings attached". Unfortunately, many people choose to use the "give things away, no strings attached" path and then, after giving a thing away, demand to be paid. And it's even fine, as long as they realize many people will just brush their latter demand away, as it's silly and improper.

> The implicit social contract is for Content producers to create content consumers want which is consumed in the way they want their content served.

Oh, no no no. Not the last part. Why on Earth I, as a consumer, would agree to a producer dictating how I consume the content after I get it? I have the right to consume it the way I want, and the Web tech stack is built around preserving this right. The producer's right is to structure the content for particular consumption. A paywall, or showing ads before content, or dumping it all in a PDF, is a way of doing that. The consumer's right is to destructure what they get and consume it the way they like.

(As an analogy - if a restaurant wants me to not eat tomatoes, it's free to offers only meals without them. But it would be ridiculous for them to serve me tomatoes and then have a waiter hovering over me, ensuring I don't eat them. Or a waiter dictating I have to eat all of the things on my plate, and in a particular sequence.)

> Great, then use it when that option is available, as a benefit you wont see ads and producers get compensated.

Offer it to me, and I shall use it if I want your content badly enough, or not use it and go elsewhere. That's fair.

> I hope you're not naive enough to think that a paywall works for all content and all audiences?

I'm not. Fortunately, there are alternatives, including donations/patronage, or writing your content off as marketing expense for something else (e.g. articles published for free in hope you'll buy the author's book on the same topic, or just publishing in order to gather trust and goodwill).

(EDIT: and also, there's the elephant in the room - a lot of content can exists solely because of ads. Or, in other words, it couldn't be monetized in any other way. Why? Because it's crap. If that content dies off completely, I say good riddance.)

> there's a reason why ad-supported free content is used, it's not because it's easier, it's because it's viable

It's viable for now (and becoming less so, hence all the whining about ad-blockers). But so is polluting rivers when you're running a factory. Just because something is viable, doesn't mean it's good.