Well, in fact I have paid subscriptions to a number of magazines and a newspaper or two that I think have reasonably high editorial standards. Since I think KQED-FM is a fairly decent and largely advertiser independent information source, I've been a voluntary subscriber and donator to them for decades (I even supported KPFA for quite a while...). I've voted for (and as a taxpayer helped pay off) public library bond issues for decades. Back when I had four school-age children in the house I even once purchased, at retail, a complete set of the Britannica.
I don't know how to solve the problem (the very real, serious, and IMHO increasing) problem of corruption of many of our primary information sources and media by advertising I'd willingly pay a significant subscription fee for access to a Google equivalent that was equally good and that I could be sure was and would remain truly advertiser independent.