[yc12340]

> Historically ads were easily blocked

Historically ads were served by the site owner at their own discretion. Prior to that ads were served by TV and radio channels. None of those approaches were easy to block.

Dedicated ad networks on separate domains are relatively recent fad (since ~15 years ago). A lot websites still ship first-party ads, many have never stopped to.

[ajsnigrutin]

First party ads are also a part of many content creators (eg. "this video is sponsored by NordShadowraid Wallet"), and currently, the only way to block them is via crowdsourcing (eg. sponsorblock addon).