Maybe a decade ago. Now using Google is an exercise of filtering out Amazon affiliate blogspam clogging the first several pages of results.

“Advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of consumers” -Larry and Sergey in 1998

I don't know, I still would prefer the way it is now to a paid service

This has been fulfilled in full with YouTube and how creators fear demonetization.

I don't think that's the same thing. If you are a youtube creator and you want your videos to be monetized, you need advertisers to want to advertise on your content. As amply demonstrated by many youtube creators, you are free to go out and land your own sponsorship deals, and then you don't need to worry about demonetization.