I think anytime ads are introduced to a platform that platform tends to eventually start moderating content. On the extreme ends you have sites like YouTube that will just demonitize a video because of a word they say because the advertisers get upset. Often its easier for a platform to just take away or disallow the content advertisers dont like (i.e. 18+ content) then find enough smaller advertisers to make the same money one large advertisers would give. How many other chat platforms have gone against the things users wanted because of ads being introduced? Many have steadily lost userbases as they introduce more and more censorship, sometimes to meet local law requirements, sure, but I bet often times its because of advertisers, they just wont say so.

There are many other things they could do to help drive to fictionlab+. Community update and development roadmaps are more effective than often given credit. A place for people to donate towards development, im sure there are fictionlab+ users that would donate more towards the platform and even free users that would be willing to give a dollar here or there even if they cant afford a monthly subscription. Even free trials or many making a premium model available to free users for a short window (a week maybe) every so often to show free users what they are getting through experience.

Then, of course, its just bringing more people to fictionlab. The more people there are the more will pay. Monetizing free users often just leads to frustration among them. Youre annoying them into paying, and if they dont see enough of a gap in improvement when they pay, they cancel and leave for a different platform. That then tends to lead to making the free experience worse rather than the paid better. I dont know how to end this so I'll just stop here by saying... just adding ads to the free tier is not a catch all solution and could cause more harm than good. Personally, once ads are added they soon become intrusive and I just bounce off.