It's about the price of placing an advertisement. Ads becoming that cheap has eradicated significant portions of the Web, which is now flocking to the few big content platforms. I'd call this an anticompetitive development. Ad networks, like Google, are setting these prices. And they have turned the tables: you can't negotiate the worth of the service, as you the product is the ad tag, not the content, it's embedded in.

(Also, we – as a society – don't entertain second thoughts on housing prices or general cost of living, while this is a common and basic need. Why is this different? Is there a privilege? Also, who's interest is this about, the content creators, including news sites, or advertisers, who rely on this kind of contextual content provided by the creators? Quite obviously, the current arrangement isn't working out for creators, and news, including active journalism and research, are in a steep decline, after having peaked in revenue around 2008.)