Since most website ad revenue is based on cost-per-click and not cost-per-impression, am I a thief every time I view an ad without clicking on it? (And evidently clicking an ad without intending to buy anything is "click fraud", so it's damned if you do, damned if you don't)
I see that in a later comment you admit that stealing might be too strong a word; I think any word is too strong if it attributes moral failure to anyone who doesn't respond to advertising. Whoever said "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half", he didn't go on to say "therefore, half the population are thieves and freeloaders."
_>If you don't like it...go pay for an ad free service. Nobody deserves to get something for nothing."_
What you call "getting something for nothing" used to be just part of what was called "the cost of doing business." But anyway, "deserving" has nothing to do with it. Publishers can decide who gets to view their content (maybe by refusing adblockers) and users can decide what content they want to view (maybe even by paying for it).
And more to the point, if a publisher decides that anyone, "freeloader" or not, can view their content, they can still use whatever tactics they want (including moral pressure with language about "stealing" and "deserving" and "something for nothing") to convince people to move from potential sources of revenue to actual sources of revenue. And users can decide whether or not to respond to those tactics.
tl;dr: if a website needs its viewers more than its viewers need its content, complaining about the mean, naughty users is not very productive.