I don't think the issue is about the minutiae of who's paying whom. It's more the idea that a service which was created to serve the users by blocking ads, is

I don't think the issue is about the minutiae of who's paying whom. It's more the idea that a service which was created to serve the users by blocking ads, is subverted into yet another ad-tech vendor, skimming cream for themselves based on strip-mining the brand equity of what was once a principled venture.