1blocker is fairly awful I find and rather expensive because you’re a captive audience that doesn’t have access to working uBlock.
This situation is one of several reasons I recently dumped macOS and went back to windows and am using edge and doing all my unixy stuff in VMs.
To get 100%, you use NoScript or turn Javascript off. Not many HNers even go that far.
You don't have to use 1blocker, it's just an example of a well-crafted solution that has made it so I haven't seen an ad since I started using it. There are free solutions.
The point is that you need to temper "ugh $thing is a turd!" when you're talking about fringe expectations, else you're completely disconnected from the conversation everyone else is having.
You could call uBlock Origin a "turd" for its privacy violation of having access to every website you visit and request you make, but that's not a good way to have that conversation, either.
Sounds like there was more to your decision than this situation though. Chrome + uBlock work fine on macOS.
I wouldn't call it a fringe expectation. uBlock Origin in safariextz format was quite popular for Safari, until Safari 13 removed all support for it.
As a result, many users were forced to move from something that worked very well for them to something that didn't work as well. Nobody likes to be forced to adopt something worse. Imposing the "power user" vs. "normal user" dichotomy here is not an accurate story of the history of Safari extensions.
If I browse the same sites on Chrome for Windows my CPU goes to 100%. It's awful.