I think in some ways the advertising model is downstream of more fundamental problems related to the way we approach business administration - specifically, the idea that corporations are permanent things with no particular shape that exist to generate profits. This is what drives enshittification, and it's a big part of why the present information landscape is so toxic.

The profit motive is valid and useful, obviously, but we have to remember that its usefulness is fundamentally contingent. It's useful exactly to the extent that it causes people to make and maintain other, more specifically useful things. We forget this, though, and allow an investor class to emerge that treats the entire economy as a game of blackjack, with their bank account as a "high score" - and this gives us news executives "creating" news, electronics manufacturers fundamentally opposed to their customers' ownership of the products they've purchased, "game" companies hiring psychologists to learn how to encourage addictive behavior in their most dedicated consumers, and on and on.