[delsalk]

While a good step, personally my reasons for blocking ads rests more from a tracking standpoint than visually.

Google being a middleman makes it logistically easy but removes the main reason why I would pay some amount directly to sites themselves.

[foxylad]

Unless I'm very much mistaken, blocking ads isn't going to make a whit of difference to tracking. Unless you aggressively block cookies and javascript as well, you're up large on the radar.

[delsalk]

Not by itself no, but you can't block tracking beacons and then leave gaping holes in the form of AdSense, so if your motive is tracking then you're not going to see most ads regardless.