Half of ads is strictly more valuable than all of them. Whether or not it's worth $8 is another question, but people still forget it's all a supplier-driven market: there is, and is not going to be, an option to pay $8 and get no ads. You choose out of what's being made available.
> But if it's only 10% less annoying, there's very little incentive to buy.
Right. But that $8 doesn't only buy you halving the ad load, but also all the other things like better reach and the "I'm a paying user, I'm better than you non-paying ones" checkmark. I mean, if it works on GitHub...
> And adblock is an option sitting in the wings.
Yes, but! Most people use Twitter through the app, and blocking ads there isn't as simple as having your tech-savvy friend install uBlock Origin in your browser. Adblocking in apps is, even for techies, something between extremely sophisticated and downright impossible.