There is a viral clip of Lebron James saying he doesn't pay for spotify premium. If a multi millionaire can justify going through the friction of the free software, you can argue masses feel the same way. An app/service with frictionless UX that requires subscription/fees is just going have a very small percentage of users. A developer/small team may be content with that, but VC funded outfits are advised and need to have a massive growth of user to justify further rounds. So the app/service has to be free with ads/other dark patterns to boost engagement/revenue. (exceptions that come to mind are netflix but even they have an ad tier now)