Not exactly. People don't click on ads when ads are blocked. But ad aggregation companies get paid in a couple of different ways. Click through is a big one, but ad impressions (eyeballs that supposedly viewed an ad) are also a thing. And impressions pay, just not as well as clickthroughs. Ad companies haven't stopped paying aggregates for ad space. That's why ads on paid services have gotten more egregious. It's not because they aren't getting paid. It's because they want both.

For what it's worth, you can (and some do) pay for subscriptions to websites or services on the internet. But nobody is paying ad aggregation companies with the intent of seeing ads regardless of the reality.

Also, ad blocking as a whole is for security as much as it is for quality of life. Ad aggregation companies have a habit of taking the money and asking questions only when they get complaints (if then) and as a result, they don't leave users who want to protect themselves another choice.

Of course, there's also the fact that one way or another the web can't just be free. Someone somewhere has to pay for the resources that make it run and the upkeep it requires.

Depends. I often click on articles based on the summary because the article link is usually posted before the summary is. Sometimes the summary doesn't really explain enough for me to understand. Other times I want to know more. But when you use chatgpt to answer a query usually you don't leave that page in order to get more information and that's the problem I'm pointing out. Usually you don't even have a link to where the information in the summary came from either (my experience is limited to Google's Gemini, which I don't use, but which for a while was front and center on any query I typed in).

True, but its a tiny summary one sentence, im less likely to click the link when I see the fat human written summary at the top of reddit comments