Magazine sells advertising on the basis of its circulation figures. It's the same reason it costs more per minute to advertise during the Superbowl than it does to get a Nasa space shuttle three inches off the ground.
I made that up, but it's fucking pricey. You sell into a publication on the basis of how many people will see it. If your readership is into the millions, then you're pretty much going to be able to name your price.
My guess is that they're adding all these complimentary subscriptions to their circulation totals and hiking the price of their ads accordingly to cover the costs. Probably changing the ratio of editorial:adverts too. I wouldn't be surprised if the volume of ads hadn't gone up since I last looked at Maxim (probably a year ago).
Most of these mags originated in Britain, and exploded in popularity during the mid 1990s. The last I read about them, they were suffering something of a backlash and most were losing readers. Maybe we have an answer?
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But, for the publishers to sell to big advertisers, and to make money on a large volume of ads, they need a lot of subscribers. That’s where the complimentary subscriptions come in. Publishers use complimentary subscriptions to supplement the paid subscriptions when they need a larger circulation to sell advertising.
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Man, I love being right.