I was referring to authors marketing their own work, not consumers being subjected to ads. But I totally agree with you on the YT ads, they're only getting worse and more frequent.
I think "pay as you wish" approach can work in the right environment but it has to be a good fit. Where you're placing the books for sale is imperative. The way Amazon works is they charge a flat fee and then the author sets the retail price. I get the difference between their "wholesale" and the "retail price (I set) as a royalty. It's a great system, really. I make around 5-8x more per book, on average, than if I was working with a traditional publisher.