I don't think it's about one model being inherently better than the other. It's just different and you may want different things for different products.

I don't care if I'm seeing an ad when reading your recipe on your blogpost. Put ads in my operative system and I'll flip out and jump to your competitors.

Blanket statements that say advertising is bad in the name of privacy is plain ridiculous and this kind of thinking is responsible for regulations which made ads way less effective and drove the revenue from advertising down.

This in turn results in less freedom.

If EU regulations make ads unprofitable, I don't have the freedom to pick ad-supported software anymore over paid solution.

Not to mention the usability issues with all those damn popups.