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Case in point: cable tv.

Or Hulu.

Or newspapers, for that matter.

Hulu did the opposite: they initially had ads for everyone, but later introduced an ad-free package at a higher price.

NY Times already does. I was surprised and annoyed to still see ads when I subscribed.

A lot of good media properties are sold BECAUSE of the ads.

Think magazines like Vogue, with 800 pages of ads that people are looking at for the season's trends. Or other shopping magazines. Also, local newspapers provide useful local business advertising.

A good media property knows that ads are as useful as other content.

Subscriptions are terrible business models as well. The vast majority of subscriptions work on users that pay but dont use the system. They are not economically efficient at all.

Or at least covertly collect and sell your usage data for data aggregators to use to advertise to you on other services.