The conventional wisdom is that offering paid subscribers ad free experiences poisons the well for advertisers. After all, it eliminates the people that have enough disposable income to pay a nominal fee!

Not sure how this translates to targeted ads. Would offering such a thing violate Google’s TOS?

services likely do studies to decide do they want to be ads based, or visitors are willing to pay for subscription.

And then, historically, show ads to their subscribers.

Cable, streaming video, etc.

Because advertisers pay more to reach people they know are willing to pay for stuff. It's whatever the opposite of a virtuous cycle is... a race to the bottom?