[johnnyo]

The average across all users is $12, but I suspect the average over people willing to pay for Blue is likely higher than that.

It's can be a Catch-22 in some cases. The same people most willing to pay to opt-out are the ones most coveted by advertisers.

[X6S1x6Okd1st]

Some how I don't think the people that want to pay to get rid of ads are the ones clicking on them.

Anecdotally someone I am close to doesn't seem to mind ads and regularly buys products from them, I block ads and rarely ever buy products from them. I'd pay for not being served ads in the first place

[wbobeirne]

It's not necessarily about clicking the ad, it's also about brand awareness and the subconscious effect of having seen it.

In the back of your head when you see the product the next time, you might think to yourself "I've seen this somewhere before... it's probably reputable." Or when you're in need of something, that brand's product might pop into your head sooner as something to assess.

[renewiltord]

Anecdotally, I click ads and buy things from them all the time and I have all ad free subscriptions: YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, WSJ, Economist. Lots of stuff. Instagram doesn’t have an ad free thing but I would have paid for it in the past. Not any more though.

[rebeccaskinner]

For some users this might be true, but not for everyone- whether the advertisers realize it or not. I refuse to buy anything from an ad. If I want to buy a widget and happen to see an ad in the search results for the widget, I'll then refuse to buy the widget because I saw an ad for it. I block every promoted tweet, and enable as much ad blocking as I possible can on all of my devices. I am probably worth a negative amount to advertisers because seeing their ads actively makes me disinclined to buy the product.

On the other hand, I realize that services cost money to build and maintain, and if the subscription came with ad-free (and data-mining free! "ad-free - same great ad-tech data-mining flavor" doesn't count) I would definitely subscribe.