[stasilo]

I do understand the economics at play, and I haven't dismissed the subscription model. My point of view is simply this: if you're a media outlet producing content and you can't survive on a subscription based model (or any other model) alone, and have to revert to ads (malicious, annoying ads - I'll admit there are reasonable ways to advertise, but that's not what we're talking about here) to make ends meet, then your content isn't good enough.

That's like making a terrible burger and complaining you're going out of business because people aren't buying it. Tough luck, but that's capitalism.