I would not mind if it had as much ads as it had content. But this is not the case. I would even be ready to pay for it. Being free does not mean it's ok to do mediocre stuff or so so articles. I see more good stuff on this forum than in the Dragon + mag. At some point, they show me ads. They must then have some revenues from it. If not? Why show the ads? So yep, it's free for us, but we are still targeted by ads. A really free magazine would (generally) have no ads (this is called a Fanzine, some are free, some you have to pay).
And using ads to sell us stuff must be relatively lucrative as they had more and more over time. So yep, in a sense, we are paying for it as we buy some of the products they advertise (I know I did buy some on more than one occasion, a lot more...) but having less and less content will just drive the general reader away and thus, lower their potential advertisement revenues. If I stop reading it because it still goes on with poor content, it might be just 5 or 6 items I will not buy. But if many stop reading it, then the advertisers will simply stop paying to have ads on their zine.