Not odd...just how the business model works. They provide the content in exchange for some people clicking on an interesting ad here or there to cover their expenses for producing, designing, hosting the content.
Taking steps to counter-act or remove the marketing means there is 0 chance you will generate any revenue for them, so they don’t want you on their site, wasting their bandwidth.
Does that make sense?
It makes sense that I will gladly not go to their site.