[losteric]

Ads themselves are an inconvenience on readers.

It's possible for a website owner to directly publish ads, and those ads would be harder to block (but still trivial). Site owners trade screen real estate in exchange for ad revenue, just like billboards of old. This used to be the model in the early 2000s and I actually OK with it... though it probably wasn't the best model, a bit like running a diner on revenue from ads in the menu.

The problem is centralized publishers. They offer higher revenue through highly targeting ads from thousands of advertisers. It's a race to the bottom where all websites are incentivized to use publishers and consumers are forced to use ad blocking tools against the publishers (hurting content creators)... undermining the long-term sustainability of the internet as a content publishing medium.

As with many things, both consumers and producers are acting justifiably. It's the man in the middle that needs to go. He's just skimming a short-term profit and hurting both sides in the long-run.