The advertising business model destroyed any possible alternative, like Google Maps destroyed virtually all commercial maps, by providing products "for free" with costs well hidden from the public. Yet those costs exist and burden the society even more by removing the competition and enabling monopolies.

Who knows which products and business models would exist without it? The (actually free, non-monopolized) market would show us. I wish it could and am curious, too.

The real solution is to ban advertising and let the free market do its job, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43595269