Agree. Feels like grasping at straws. I imagine the company viability is at risk and they are panicking about what to do. Looks at what your users actually care about, not at how much garbage you can get away with before alienating all the users. You tried that and the answer is that you alienated almost all the original users. I understand the need to be paid. Do something creative. The ads for paid stuff seems lazy. I imagine the incentives are aligned with “clicks” and not actually delivering value to users in terms of the ads.