Fair enough, but speak for yourself. If ads were tiny, insignificant things that didn't chew up CPU and RAM resources (like with Javascript), didn't massively

Fair enough, but speak for yourself. If ads were tiny, insignificant things that didn't chew up CPU and RAM resources (like with Javascript), didn't massively bloat the total size of a web page and use up my bandwidth, and didn't try to invade my privacy with tracking, then I simply wouldn't bother blocking them. If they were small, unobtrusive text-based ads like Google use to be really good at, then why would I care? Maybe you just can't stand advertising, but I don't think most people care as much as you do. I adblock precisely because of privacy, security, and speed. And without ads of any kind, it probably would be a capitalist apocalypse. How would Apple sell the iPhone or Samsung sell the Galaxy phones without advertising? Word of mouth? That's a pretty slow way to get the word out. Relying on the press? That might work for really big players (and how is that different from advertising anyway?), but it won't work for smaller firms selling more niche products. What if you're shopping on Amazon and you buy product X, but product Y would go really well with it? Right now, Amazon will frequently show you "other customers who bought this product also bought product Y". But without advertising, you wouldn't see that, so you'd be stuck only buying the exact thing you're looking for, and never getting any suggestions. I actually like getting those suggestions; I do buy things like that from time to time, things I wouldn't have thought of otherwise.