for every 9 who leave, 1 will make them at least 10x the money by watching and clicking ads. but yet they'll have to pay fewer server and bandwidth and hosting costs. more profit. line goes up. shareholders appeased, as legally mandated.

welcome to the whale economy. 9 consumers may be alienated for the value of the 1 with poor impulse control who remains. it is happening to all goods and services, slowly.

If they know someone will buy it anyway for some reason (more money than sense, poor impulse control, etc.) why should McDonald's sell 10 burgers at 1 dollar each when it could sell 1 burger at 10 dollars? same revenue, 10% of the labor and material costs.