websites ain’t free
That is true, but more and more websites are so active ad laden as to be nearly useless. Even one of my e-mail services won't run decently unless I run it on a computer with AdBlock Plus.
I have also noticed that (in IE, at least) after browsing sites with ads, sometimes I can close all browser windows, and then go into Task Manager and find instances of the browser still running! This even though the browser is set to delete the browsing history when closing, or if I manually delete the browsing history before closing the last browser window (even if that last step is on a clean site like FR.) I have yet to have anyone explain how these instances of the browser are still running. At least I can kill them in Task Manager.
Now, what I would like is an ad blocking program that allowed the user to screen ads by size, active vs. non-active content, and overall intrusiveness. If something like that became popular, maybe users could "teach" those running web sites to run less obtrusive ads.