I've never used an ad blocker. I accept that today's web largely depends on advertising, so it feels like the right thing to do. I also think that using an ad blocker is like wanting to attend a concert, deciding the price is too high, and sneaking in anyway. It feels like stealing.

That said, I don't like ads any more than anyone else does. I rarely click on them, and I avoid sites that overdo them.

It makes me sad that the web is in a death spiral. The more people use ad blockers, the more intrusive ads need to be for the remainder of us who don't, which further encourages the self-interested to use ad blockers. The only ways I see to end the death spiral are to successfully reset the ad-vs-ad-blocker dynamic (which I suppose Google is trying to do with this move), or for another revenue model to take hold. I don't think either will happen. It's too bad, because I grew up with the web, and I don't want it to die.