Note what I mentioned in the blog post: most will probably be fine with advertisements so long as they aren't annoying.
You don't get to act the victim when you actively hurt the UX by having avertisements that get all up in your face and want to eek out every single penny like we're slaves.
Non-obtrusive ads will always be the best :)
Or make them interesting if you want to be the focus. I can definitely say I've stayed and watched a few interesting advertisements.
I'd argue your viewpoint here is along the lines of opt-in telemetry - nice in theory, but not practical for the ones that need the information. And you can have respecting telemetry (as you can advertisements, just that nobody does so).
Coming from someone with an unstable source of income, and that can just barely get by: I'll take advertisements over a subscription/donation based model. Just don't flood your website with them. Or use shitty ad services. And don't make it an unusable experience cough britannica cough
Considering the amount of downtime I've seen with any somewhat large lemmy instance, I don't think that theory holds up
That way should not be intrusive ads, and it shouldn't be tracking without user consent.
On their own, exposed to the user in an easily understandable way and easily customizable, they're not bad. They can even help; used right, you can get advertisements relevant to you and your interests, and developers can know what to improve on.
The problem is when this is abused to hell and back by companies that want to strip you of every penny they possibly can, without giving you the choice.