Honestly I disagree... From what I've heard from app developers etc... ads generate far less money than even $1 app sales. Now maybe that's the brokers etc... But there's also a reason why Hulu shut down their purely ad supported tier, and none of the big companies are leaning into that. Only "subscribe and get ads" lower dollar tiers.

I'm no super expert, but I think ads are still very inefficiant ways to make money... the profit per customer is very small even with the most privacy invasive blast you away with everything aspect. I don't claim to be an expert, but it appears to me an ad supported service needs around 100x more users to make the same money as a low cost service. However, in actual userbases it goes closer to 1000x when that offer is on the table.