The cost to subscriber is out of line with the expense to provider.

Same is true of digital newspapers, magazines, etc., the subscription fees are way out of proportion to what they made from ads per reader in print or made in CPM online.

While this might not matter for one publisher, it prevents users from accepting pay-for-use as an alternative model across the range of media they consume unless through an aggregate subscription like the one acquired by Apple.

(While on the subject, the various ad-free streaming providers litter the offerings with more and more ads to the point you can’t trust your shows will indeed be ad free. It’s hard to say if this is on purpose to undermine and kill that model or not.)