I believe you're in the extreme minority when it comes to ad block users.
The web was always presented as being free - the content was free, the browsers were free, the community that built it believed information wanted be free. Most people don't want to compensate anyone for anything on the web by viewing ads because they've been conditioned to expect that they shouldn't have to - they simply see advertising as a nuisance. Until recently when sites started detecting ad-blockers, there was no negative effect to blocking it.
I do believe advertising doesn't work on the web, but mostly because of the way the web was designed and implemented, not entirely because of politics. Content creators can't expect to be compensated through web ads as long as they can't stop users from viewing their content without the ads. At least with other forms of media, you're expected to pay before you consume, or viewership is estimated, so the effect of avoiding advertising isn't so direct, but on the web, every view counts.
Given the poor reputation (entirely deserved) of web ads, the degree of control users have over their browsers, and the number of people who view piracy and ad-blocking as a moral imperative, alongside the majority who just consider ads to be annoying and useless for them, it's simply not possible for advertising as a revenue model to work on the web. The number of people who consider "ethical" or "acceptable" ads to even be a thing isn't large enough to support the web's economy.