Moreover, if the gray ad were representative of the state of advertising on the internet, I highly suspect that less people would spend too much effort in block

Moreover, if the gray ad were representative of the state of advertising on the internet, I highly suspect that less people would spend too much effort in blocking advertisements. My ideal ad-blocking solution turns the popover, popunder, rollover-expanding, shouting at the top of their heads to get your attention advertisements into something as innocuous as that 'nasty' gray ad. I don't have a problem trading my eyeballs for a product, but I do have a problem when your ad takes over my browser, makes the page unusable, or is generally a pain in the ass. Of course, my fix there isn't to use an adblocker, it's just to block the site altogether.