They don’t care about you. They don’t even want you as a subscriber, you’re a pain in the ass. Most people are too tired and not tech savvy enough to pirate. A lot of those will eventually do something else, too, but they can cram ads into the streams faster than those people can find the wherewithal to leave.
In short, this is profitable, and no amount of raging will make it less so. Take care of yourself, but don’t pretend you’re making line go down.
It seems far more likely to me that Putin requested them. There was a brief period where America had a monopoly on anti-COVID medical tech.
The story as reported isn’t clear on whose idea it was. For Trump to spontaneously have a brainstorm to help another human being, even if it’s Putin, doesn’t really check out for me.