In European countries websites (various, mostly news), I'm seeing more of "Accept all cookies and ads" OR "sign up and pay".

Always remember the third option: "close the tab and don't give them your time"

If they are willing do sell you to data harvesters then that won't be the only unethical thing they are willing to do. Be thankful that they have voluntarily outed their publication as untrustworthy and move on.

the example is good and those ads are less awful because the same ad it sent to a demographic, rather than an individual, eg everyone in Michigan get the same ad or everyone watching Friends at 8pm in Cincinnati gets the same ad. Facebook's specialty is targeting a user with an ad. And a side effect or bonus is that few others see it to talk about how inaccurate it might be.

They may be less awful but they are still awful and we should not accept them.

What you pay(paid) for cable TV was never enough to actually cover the total cost of the service you were receiving.

You were splitting that cost with the advertisers.

This is not a defence of advertising, just a reality check on this bad example.

This might be true if cable companies did not make a profit.

In the US, at least, I think the lack of competition (almost monopoly pricing in most areas) has led to exactly the opposite situation - plenty of profits for the cable providers.

Do you have evidence for the claim that the monthly fees are not enough to cover the cost of providing the service?

I tried to find numbers but couldn’t, so I’m left with a macroeconomic argument. Better details would be welcome.

It was enough when cable companies were new. And your argument fails because entertainment is not priced to cost anyway.