So what is next, it becomes compulsory to actually buy the stuff that is advertised, or else it is stealing? What is the point of pushing ads at people who don't want to see them?
The people who go the advertising route know beforehand that not everybody is going to react to the ads and buy something. You are not stealing anything by ignoring the ads.
By all means ignore the ads. Using software to physically (so to speak) remove the ads is a much different thing then ignoring them. Advertisers know that a large percentage of viewers are in fact going to ignore them, and that's built into the system.
"What is the point of pushing ads at people who don't want to see them?"
I don't know, what's the point of charging people money for things when they'd really prefer them to be free? This isn't about what you want. This is about people supplying services and/or content, and trying to monetize them in some manner. Again, if you don't like the way they are monetizing these things, don't use them.
By serving up some HTML, you're giving away content - you might have some rules about redistribution, of course, but esentially, you're giving some HTML and/or images to someone's browser to render as they see fit. If they choose to ignore or excise some of it, that's their business. For instance, screen readers for blind people ignore images.
I sympathize with the advertiser's point of view, because I have several sites myself that get a little bit of money from adsense. However, I'm enough of a believer in freedom to think that if people want to block ads more than they want free content, well, that's what the market will give them in some way or another.
Yeah, I agree. It's sort of an arms race - publishers might also try sneakier ways of slipping ads in. I have a feeling that 99% of users aren't going to get that excited about it unless the ads get overbearingly intrusive.
What is the big difference between ignoring them and not displaying them? I really don't get it, unless you count on the subtle effect on the subconsciousness if you only ignore them, but not display them. And it is an entirely different question from asking money for things that people would rather have for free.
Just because you put up some content doesn't mean you get to control the brains of your clients.
The people who go the advertising route know beforehand that not everybody is going to react to the ads and buy something. You are not stealing anything by ignoring the ads.