Seling products is secondary.
Here’s how it works. When sellers set prices, the more expensive it is the fewer can buy. They want to find a big “revenue box” which is where price × customers is high. So they set the price as high as they can without dropping too many costumers. That’s the basic seller approach.
There is a way for them to get even more money and it’s called “tiers”. The customers who can’t afford the price they set will drop off but you can catch some of them by making more than one tier so that your revenue box looks more like a revenue staircase and captures more of the profitable area on the price × costumers graph.
But you can’t make the cheaper tiers too good or people will stay there and be satisfied by that. You’ll cannibalize your more expensive tiers.
That’s where ads come in. They make the tiers so unbearable that anyone who can afford the ad free tier will go for it.
Enjoy the podcast? Great, we sold ad space to companies that wanna buy your ears. Hate ads? Even greater, you can by our next tier up.
Hate movie theater ads? Guess you should’ve had a home theater.
Hate subway ads? Guess you should’ve bought a rideshare.
Hate roadside ads? Guess you should’ve had a limo with toned windows or live in a gated community.
If the ads are making your every day a living hell they are doing their job as intended even though they consume vast amounts of electricity for no benefit.