[iamdamian]

This is part of the story, but it's not all of it. Newspapers and paid cable have had ads for as long as I can remember, even for paying subscribers. So do some tiers of paid Hulu. Paid versions of Windows have started to see more intrusive in-OS ads, and we see ad-supported versions of the Kindle put on the market even though the original Kindle had no ads.

I signed up for a popular online magazine just this week and even when I'm logged in, I see ads begging me to subscribe.

Finally, of course, most of the popular services (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google) don't even offer an ability to pay instead of viewing ads, so consumers can't meaningfully express this preference.