It's a business it needs to generate income to cover costs and to hopefully also increase the value of the steem coin. Otherwise Steemit is just a major sink hole of money flowing out of steem. I fully support ads as long as they are not super targeted and taking peoples information.

Why are there so many content creators on Youtube? Because they get paid big bucks from ads on their videos.

I have a feeling 95% of people would rather watch an ad to support a content creator then fork up $2 of their own money.