That argument seems to me akin to insisting the internet remain a platform for hobbyists and non-profit organizations. How does this site stay running and pay employees in this purer internet?
By enabling people to subscribe to their content if they deem it worthy. Maybe have a free section where you serve static sites and for your more "in-depth" articles or whatever you make it subscriber-exclusive.
I didn't want to argue we should revert to the internet of the 90's, but saying "how could you ever put anything on the web without cookies, tracking, data gathering?!" seems disingenuous when the internet was literally built without that.
EDIT: Oh, I get it now. We just had different interpretations of what "exist" meant :)
For me it was just "a site on the internet that can be reached by other people", for you it was more about the economic viablity. Fair point.
It does work! And frankly, it‘s very well suited if all you want to do is display an article.
Maybe i was woooshed here, not sure.