It’s not that people who want ad-free experiences are targeted, it’s that people who have money to spare every month to buy a premium experience (in this case,

It’s not that people who want ad-free experiences are targeted, it’s that people who have money to spare every month to buy a premium experience (in this case, not be annoyed by an ad), are highly correlated with people who you want to reach because they have money to buy your product, and that’s who they want to advertise to. Advertisers don’t want to be spending money to reach people who will never buy their product, either because they hate their ad or because they don’t have money, but unfortunately there is no way to know who these people are in advance. Spending $10/month to not look at text ads is a sure fire way to signal you have money so you aren’t in the later camp, and people who hate ads with a passion and won’t respond to them are rare in the wild (hn nonwithstanding :D) Too many people think they can monetize by just “sprinkle some ads on it” without thinking about why an advertiser would buy those ads.