And they inevitably turn every service into an ad delivery service. Thus, enshitification. Subscription services directly convert the utility of the application into revenue. It will always make a better platform, but it might not scale as well.

Non-obtrusive ads will always be the best :)

Or make them interesting if you want to be the focus. I can definitely say I've stayed and watched a few interesting advertisements.

I'd argue your viewpoint here is along the lines of opt-in telemetry - nice in theory, but not practical for the ones that need the information. And you can have respecting telemetry (as you can advertisements, just that nobody does so).