[jnorthrop]

The ads help pay for the service. If they are that intrusive choose something else.

[Semiapies]

Some people get a lame thrill off of making sure that someone else doesn't get money.

[omouse]

I use Thunderbird to check my GMail. Am I freeloader now too?

[Semiapies]

Google makes using Thunderbird for your Gmail possible. If they had a check-off box that said "Show No Ads", there'd be nothing wrong with checking it. However, that's a wholly different thing than going to lengths to disable the very unobtrusive ads shown in exchange for using the web client.

[_pius]

Well, yes. :)

[diN0bot]

this is an interesting ethics question.

if you never click on ads, then why not disable them?

[mtoledo]

Because you can't know that you'll never ever click on the ads for sure. The ads change, and people change too.

[yummyfajitas]

Google ads are actually very good. I admit I've clicked on a couple of them:

Want a job programming OCaml?

Faster than FFTW

[lucumo]

Not all ads are paid-per-click, some are paid-per-view. And even for those that are paid-per-click you can often get into better ad programs if you have more ad views.