They've said they are introducing a reduced subscription fee with ads, not adding ads.

I believe ads are fundamentally immoral. (Moral ads are theoretically possible, but in practice I almost never see ads which have the purpose of informing rather than emotionally manipulating. Ads destroy culture, make viewers less happy, and waste time).

The fact that they drew a line in the sand is why I have brand loyalty. If they cross that line, I'll no longer be "supporting a company bringing a moral perspective on content delivery" and turn off autorenew: just pick up a month or two a year.

Given their price increases they'll be at $15/month on the ad supported tier soon

I generally avoid any service that even has an ad-supported tier because in my experience it starts out as "ads are to subsidize the cost for people who can't afford or don't want to pay for the premium service." Then it becomes, "We're contractually obligated to have ads in certain shows regardless of which tier the viewer is, but they won't show up in others, and they'll be short and unobtrusive." Then it's "We're keeping rates low by having ads in all show, but they're ads that are relevant and very short, and only at the beginning and/or end of the show." Then it becomes "We're removing the premium tier because not enough people signed up for it. Also the ads are going to be longer and more intrusive now." Forget it. I can just skip the whole thing and lose nothing. If you even have an ad-supported tier, I'm out.

Advertisers also don't want to advertise to those "too cheap to pay to avoid ads".

They want to everyone, or the premier tiers. It's a conflict that can never be resolved.

they really want the premium tiers in my experience

Yeah, they should go with a flat price, and if you watch ads you get "4K sponsored by Advertiser X" kinda thing, otherwise you get boring 420p.

Yep, Youtube to chromecast is practically unwatchable these days. 1-2 stupid 5 second ads interrupt the program every few minutes. Many are so short I'm perplexed why the brand thinks they are getting any value out of them: they do little but annoy me and make me think the brand is bad with money.

I would not be surprised if the ads are placed at the current price tier, honestly. It wouldn't technically be lying; they're delivering a cheaper tier with ads, and a more costly tier without ads, just like they said they would! It's just that "cheaper" in this case would mean "cheaper than the new higher subscription tier", not "cheaper than the previous model".

Yes, and cable TV originally ran without ads (because why else would you pay for TV?), but once they had a subscriber base they started playing them.

Bottom line: if they think it will improve the bottom line, they will do it.

They already did a Coke ad for like 5 awkward minutes in the middle of an episode of Stranger Things.

Incidentally, all this talk of how badly they're doing just reminded me to cancel, which I did, minutes ago.

Absolutely agree… ads would be the death blow for me. Have cancelled a few times in the past because just don’t have a lot of time to watch TV. Ads and would never go back