Not oc, but I share some of this sentiment. Modern advertising is heavily based on behavioral science, psychological and especially emotional manipulation. This is on top of extreme methods to hijack your attention at all cost. It might sound like hyperbole but if you read marketing case studies you realize this isn't only the norm, it's something they take pride in, especially when it appears to work (which it does).

In my view, blocking this isn't just morally just, it's absolutely necessary. I deliberately choose not to partake in this and not be a target for manipulation to the best of my ability.

Maybe there was a time when advertising was more about creating awareness instead of feeling and making you want the product, but advertising changed dramatically over the 20th century. There's quite a lot of reading material out there if you're interested.

Also not oc, but…

Without advertising, “content marketing”, and paid placements/reviews people would buy things when they desire or need them.

They’d ask friends, compare specs, and read/watch reviews before determining what to buy.

That is: without ads, people would gravitate towards buying what fits their needs best. They would make generally rational choices given the information available.

Advertising’s job is to subvert those rational choices and make people buy something, whether it’s the best option or not. In fact, even when they don’t actually want or need anything at all.

It causes people exposed to it to spend money unnecessarily, and on the wrong products and downright bad products. Some are more susceptible than others, but in the end it’s an illegitimate tax levied every time you buy something. Even if you didn’t respond to advertising when making a purchase, advertising is so ubiquitous and necessary in most markets that the price you paid probably contributed to the advertising the manufacturer had to deploy to keep up with the arms race.

There’s nothing ethical or necessary about any of this.

Ideally there would be legislation that would force business models to change, but while there is not, ad blocking is absolutely an imperative.