This reply appears to be both a strawman (I never said anything about my preferences) and an ad hominem attack (Diminishing my comment bc of who I am).
There are three ways you can gets for goods and services in this world
i) Pay Money (HNers who claim, i'll-pay-for-no-ads-services are pathetic liars as seen from the adoption rate of YouTube premium which offers exactly that service).
ii) Pay through watching Ads
a) Watch relevant but low volume targeted ads (allow tracking)
or
b) Watch irrelevant but higher volume ads (no tracking -- pihole)
iii) Steal Content
Most HNers who complain have made their choices very vocal. They prefer (ii)b and yet they make sad pikachu face when they are bombarded with Ads.
When Ads aren't effective (not targeted), it's compensated by higher volume. It's, Economics/Math 101.
I don't prefer to be bombarded with ads. But a lot of the bad in ads is tracking and being insanely intrusive visually, not that they exist in the first place.