Tell that to cable companies, sports broadcasts and now streaming services. The one incontrovertible fact of modern society is that ads eat everything else. No other revenue source compares.
Well duh. Because it's the only value you're allowed to collect from retail customers without having to deal with either chargebacks or kyc.
We've deliberately made every other form of micropayment infeasible. It shouldn't be surprising that the only one left is insanely popular.
You might lose some people, but probably not many - we've been conditioned to really accept ads everywhere.