Nope, never have. I have 99 problems but an ad ain't one.
I don't think advertising is inherently evil (though I respect that some may disagree), I think the problem is that we're still in the early days of Internet advertising. The technique isn't quite there yet.
Examples of passive ads: music discovery [pandora], news aggregation [HN], etc versus active ads: traditional ads (TV/radio/internet/magazine) and active product-pushing.
As an aside, I am aware that Pandora has ads which is kind of mind boggling - they are actually providing free advertising to the music companies by letting me discover new music, yet they still have to pay royalties, so they are forced to use ads.
Maybe in the advertiers' and their bosses' deluded minds.
I'd estimate that 90% of ads I saw were lying either directly or by omission. They don't add value, they try to trick you in to buying crap you don't need, that's often no better (or even worse) than the competition, products that can even be harmful (like various prescription drugs that you'd often be better off not taking in the first place).
The people that peddle this crap are slime. But I'm not at all surprised that a large contingent of HN members would defend them and try to justify their miserable, lying, parasitic existence. After all, many of them own companies which depend on advertising. So they try to apply some moral balm and pretend that they're "adding value".
However, I don't think it's fair to say that "HN members defend them" since (as of this comment), there is a 2:1 ratio of blockers vs. non-blockers. OTOH, this survey doesn't distinguish users who block ads AND use them on their own sites.
Ads generate $billions online. They work.
1% of the online population block ads. It's not really a problem outside places like HN where the majority detest ads.
That would be solicited.
There are only a handful of industries (like movies and tv shows) which take a fair bit of money to create high quality content (though overwhelming majority of the time the money's wasted on utter garbage). Books, stories, news, and music can be created and distributed on a shoestring budget. They don't need the ad-supported creation or distribution model to thrive. The days of content shortages are practically over.
Then there are some of the webcomics I like, which has no alternative. If I want to read Penny Arcade, substituting another comic won't help.
So do you not read the NY Times, Washington Post, or any online newspaper that has ads? Do you not read print newspapers because they have ads?
Advertisers, corporations, and the government have a corrupting influence on the media. I'd much rather the media be 100% listener-supported, like Pacifica Radio is. Then there'll be a lot less conflict of interest.
Yes. A thousand times, yes.
As it turns out, we're already inefficiently paying for our online content. Where do you think the dollars for ad budgets come from?
I like to think of it as the country's largest privatized hidden tax system, funding socialized content.
I would have imagined you visiting every website with at least two browser at the same time, at least one of them blocking all ads and then some.
But seriously, does this mean there isn't even any point in trying to find a way to give people who use ad blocking something which would almost never be blocked, and yet could still be considered advertising if not blatantly so?
Are users of ad blocking just a complete and total void from an advertising perspective?
For example I know reddit sometimes has games in their ad banner, that's a way to encourage people to turn off add blocking.
And some TV advertisers are designing adds which still look good at Tivo fast forward speed.