[hsod]

> It's not really equivalent since you taking one diminishes the number left for other paying customers.

This is why I said a "giant barrel", because serving web pages does have marginal cost to the server owner, and from there you could imagine a situation where your page view does diminish the number of page views left for "paying" customers.

I might fast-forward through the ads, but I wouldn't feel good about it or try to defend it philosophically.