> But if the content is worth your time and energy to consume, pay the "price" of admission.
This assumes that the "time and energy to consume" is equivalent to the "price". What if it is worth the time to install 12ft or whatever, but not worth the price they want to charge?
I mean, sure, if you insist and make site-level negotiations with yourself about the value of the content.
Here’s a simple example for me:
I search Google for how to perform an operation in an Excel spreadsheet. I skip past the obvious ads at the top first. I click on a promising result on a user forum, but first have to click through a popup and then have a banner covering a third of the screen and a small inset screen with a video. That’s too much for me. I stop and go back to Google. I pick another option. And I may remember that forum is not worth the click in the future.
We make decisions like this online and offline every day. The fact is there are many valuable sites and services that are ad supported and done so responsibly. Not all, but many. Ad blockers are a blunt tool. Installing one on grandma’s browser is a constructive use, but not just because “ads are bad.”
This assumes that the "time and energy to consume" is equivalent to the "price". What if it is worth the time to install 12ft or whatever, but not worth the price they want to charge?