I'm not always so keen on places charging for services, especially when they have traditionally provided information free of charge. However, I am certainly not a fan of ads.
Personally, an easy, but unobtrusive way to donate is the best way to get revenue from me.
my point with charging for a service is, in that case they cannot make money from any crap they put out, it has to have value that someone is willing to pay for it on a regular basis. Whereas the youtube way is different, because there is monetization for pretty much any crap, which gets enough likes, subscriptions or even just by enough views. it is paid by forcing ads on people, who do not use an adblocker or can't use one by some reason. They are paying the "service" with their lifetime, if they are forced to watch the ads or get distracted by them - the most valuable resource they have and think it is free. Free stuff has most often a drawback or is manipulative.
youtube is already manipulative enough due to it's algorithms - and they are paid for their service already more than enough by gathering data - ads on top of it aren't necessary.