Paying doesn't actually solve the problem. Some time ago I bought "Angry Birds classic" app on iOS - it's a paid app that promised to bring back the "old" Angry Birds before it turned to crap.
On first launch I was met with a mandatory "privacy" policy I couldn't decline that was asking me to consent to being spied upon. I ended up getting a refund through Apple.
Sure it does, there are definitely exceptions and Angry Birds is among them. And your example is probably from a while back, since you can disable tracking on iOS from 2019 or so.
I intentionally find products where I can pay. I like YouTube, and I gladly pay for it to not see ads. It's a simple transaction, they provide a service - I pay for it. Sure, you can complain about sponsored content and other crap, but overall YouTube premium experience is great. Whenever I want something to play on my phone - I find a cheap game and just spend 2-5 dollars. In some of the free games, I intentionally spend money on cosmetics to support developers. Without this relationship, you are just a non-paying user who brings no value, and you have misaligned incentives with the app developers.
So I don't understand the mental gymnastics of well paid people (given the audience of hackernews) for why they don't want to pay a few dollars. This way you would support people who provide value to you and dictate how the industry should evolve. Instead, we have a Guac-A-Mole game with advertisers and complain every other day on forums.
I didn't mind seeing ads. I knew I was signing up for some kind of advertising.
But why does every other ad have to be not only pornographic, but offensively so? Why is it okay for them to hide a little "x" for dismissing their offensiveness?
I have the same problem with blogs and news sites at this point. I wouldn't mind leaving the ads enabled, except that they are very often not only distracting, but offensive. Someone emails me a link to a work-relevant new story, I click the link, and the page is loaded with pictures of women in bikinis, toe fungus, or other gross things. Why? This perfectly safe for work news story is now a case study in hostile work environment.
Trying to maximize for the highest cpm bidder, rather than trying to maximize for actually showing the most ads, is why the publishing industry is having to deal with ad blockers. It's the same as when napster became a challenge to exploitative pricing for CDs by music publishers. iTunes broke that mold by resetting the pricing on the supply side to actually match the demand side, and sucked a lot of the wind out of the demand for piracy. Streaming only took that further.
Content publishers could find ways to make ads less offensive, less intrusive, and safer for consumers (even the FBI is now recommending ad blockers because of the risks of ad networks run amok), and they would take much of the wind out of the demand for ad-blockers. Won't eliminate it, but would certainly dial things down.
Instead, they just keep adding more layers. More ads, more interruptions, more distractions, more offensive content. And then they complain? Come on.
Because again, that's their incentive. They use whatever ads they get paid more for. Worst case, they are going to lose frustrated users like you, and make much more on others. Products that want to bring a better user experience, just can't survive, because even well paid users can't justify a couple of dollars for their service. For games there's Apple Arcade, for news - Apple News. They have some decent alternatives. Support great products that you like.
On first launch I was met with a mandatory "privacy" policy I couldn't decline that was asking me to consent to being spied upon. I ended up getting a refund through Apple.