The argument has been made before, that adblocking is a form of theft. I don’t disagree with it, and when a site blocks me for using ad block I accept it and either forgo the content or disable my Adblock.

Years ago there was an effort to allow users to pay a monthly fee to avoid ads. The idea was that this specific ad network would distribute those funds to the sites you visited in place of ad revenue, and the users would instead see a placeholder of their choice (like a grey block, cat pictures, etc).

I signed up for it, unfortunately they could never achieve market penetration compared to google Adsense, eventually the product died.

Unfortunately there is more money in collecting your behaviors, habits, and using that for targeted advertising than most people are willing to pay for content in aggregate.

YouTube and other platforms have seem some success in ad free options, but only on those targeted platforms where the value-add is clearer to the consumer.

p.s. If I have to go out of my way to evade anti-adblock measure then the answer is a clear yes to me. Otherwise, if no clear block is placed before me I view it as a moral grey area. Sites that I want to support and regularly visit I disable ad block for. I am one of those people who don’t have adblock on YouTube.

I’d like to see an internet that didn’t need ads or ad blockers. Give me a better way to help you monetize your content.