The people that are most likely to pay are (in most cases) the most loyal users, who visit the site regularly. If those loyal users who push up ad views then move to an "ad free" plan, ad views go down, ad sales team gets sad.
Don't get me wrong, everything about this model sucks -- it's just not as straight forward as it might seem.
So what if the ad sales team gets sad? The subscription sales team would be very happy. You just got a regular recurring income stream. You could even shift employees from one to the other team.
And by being unethical and double dipping you're setting a great example for your customers who won't feel bad about being unethical themselves and just blocking and bypassing all your monetisation. If a site is being honest and fair I'm also much more motivated to play fair with them. I used to with Amazon and Netflix and paid my subscription until they started charging extra to remove ads. Now I pirate again.
Ps by 'you' I mean the companies that choose to do this, not you the poster.
> And by being unethical and double dipping you're setting a great example for your customers who won't feel bad about being unethical themselves and just blocking and bypassing all your monetisation.
I don’t disagree with the message wholesale, but blocking ads is not unethical. It’s a vital defense mechanism against outright malicious actors or the excesses of the attention economy. There is no opt-out or alternative, and there is no consent.