I am not sure if I am missing something here, if directing the viewer to website and website display the content+ad, how does google take a cut? Google take a cut from sponsored link right? So if the media feel that paying for the link redirection is an extortion, then don't buy sponsored links right?

I am old enough that I know what news is like before internet, so to compete the eyeballs and attract regular/repeat users, your content needs to be in top quality. And we all know how it's not the "media" controlling ads, it's the other way around, it's who paid for ad space controlling the media. And to be honest, it was never a good healthy cycle anyway.(see TV ads, new paper ads, youtube ads, and intrusive web ads), faster and shorter engagement time means less conversion, and usually it means worse content overtime as sites try everything to prolong engagement time. (ie. sponsored content, embeded autoplay, more "next page", more "releated" "you might also be interested" links with clickbait title/thumbnail, etc, etc.)

People ARE statistics, there are portion of people that are considering buying certain thing, so owning your social interation/search data leads to higher associations, thus more effective ads. It's the sole reason why Google/Meta's business work, cause they can do user targeted ads.

Let's be honest, journalist quality is going down the drain as well. Like almost 30~40% of content is lagging social network for about minimum half day up toward a week. Maybe articles are just glorified blog post of referencing social media posts. Don't get me wrong, people do crave quality content articles, it's just that majority of time, even when posted to say special interest sub-reddit, the content itself is really lacking. ie. say, compare the hardware review from early 2000 and now(after 2020), it takes "longer" to get to the point, it was filled with many charts that aren't really interesting(cause we know benchmark and game performance are usually have special driver treatment etc.), less article explains the important architecture changes, how much it would affect your experience(just copy paste sponsor marketing material), talking about the hard points like is it worth the upgrade, longevity, etc. It's so bad that usually, asking in a specific gaming sub or discord about certain hardware gives you less biased feedbacks and chances are, they also give you links to cheaper vendor or links to price tracker. Hardware review sites gives you none of that(here is our sponsored market place, please support us by using the linkes below, blah.)

Last but not least, the intrusive full screen blocking shit when I just view the article's first paragraph and scroll 2 mouse wheel ticks down. How can a website expect me to subscribe without at least let me check 1 article? heck, like even 1 page or something before you pop that thing and ask me to subscribe. I am trained in a way that if I clicked an external link and see that full screen block, I just ctrl+w and close that tab. It is not worth my time. And I am the type of guy that whitelist sites that are actually helpful or pay visit often. The media sites aren't doing their best to keep or invite random visitors to come again. It's pretty much the same shit if you just scroll through Edge's suggested contents.( which I have to turn off everytime if the update reset my settings. ) They have to provide something where people are willing to stick around.