If that is the case that I can not understand how a few cents extra from ad spots will make the difference.

Scale. You can monetize on the people that don’t pay the $200/month. Obviously I have nothing to prove this statement, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the subscriptions are loss leaders.

Sam Altman said they are losing money on their $200/m tier.

Advertisers will pay MORE per user than users will. That is why they are so valuable to companies offering freemium services!

err... really?

Soooo youtube premium costs $13 CAD, You're saying that google would make MORE money off me if I cancelled that, turned off my ad blocker and just watched videos with the ads?

For things like LLM the inference cost is higher than it is to deliver a video.

What you just said was shocking to me. Absolutely shocking. Where can I find more information?