Dude. There are different types of ads. Small ad banners which don't affect normal posts is not an issue for me. I am getting a good experience so this is the way I am going to pay for it.

There are umpteen services that run on donations

A lot of them when the user base has grown, wasn't sustainable and also got closed down and moved to subscription.

If any selection of the free content network I'm a part of isn't showing me the content I want it's an intrusion.

You can pay for subscription or use another app. It's fine. Other devolopers who don't charge a single bit now will change it in the future. Who is mad to support an app without getting any kind of benefit. There are some open-source developers who do that. Still.