I'm more concerned with the anthropomorphism of an entire industry. This line of reasoning ignores the fact that The Ad Industry is not A Person With A Memory And Coherent History but rather just an almost-random sample of people with jobs. If the industry was immoral ten years ago, that doesn't mean it's immoral now, and it doesn't mean that most of the people that make it up are immoral - then or now.
But, your counter-argument is not really a valid counter-argument, either. If we act as though the present incarnation of the ad industry is to be held responsible for its past actions, that will encourage moral behavior going forward and discourage hypocrisy. Of course, I'm still anthropomorphizing the ad industry here, and assuming that it's even capable of "learning a lesson" might be assuming too much (for the record, I think it mostly is assuming too much). But I think that's supposed to be the point - sort of. By anthropomorphizing a thing, we might force that thing to behave somewhat anthropomorphically. Or, we might not.
I think we're all just trying to rationalize our behavior which is that we don't like looking at ads, and we have the technical means to block ads, so we block ads. Anything more than that feels awfully post-hoc.
By blocking ads, you're denying revenue to people whose content you wish to consume. There is no way around this fact. Maybe, by doing this, you will encourage forms of revenue generation that are less intrusive, or maybe you want to encourage a culture where revenue generation isn't necessary, or any of a thousand other 'reasons'. But, I think that if you tell yourself that this is the primary reason that you block ads, as opposed to 'I find ads irritating and don't wish to view them', you should take special care to look really hard for some cognitive bias in your thinking, because you'll almost certainly find some.
But, your counter-argument is not really a valid counter-argument, either. If we act as though the present incarnation of the ad industry is to be held responsible for its past actions, that will encourage moral behavior going forward and discourage hypocrisy. Of course, I'm still anthropomorphizing the ad industry here, and assuming that it's even capable of "learning a lesson" might be assuming too much (for the record, I think it mostly is assuming too much). But I think that's supposed to be the point - sort of. By anthropomorphizing a thing, we might force that thing to behave somewhat anthropomorphically. Or, we might not.
I think we're all just trying to rationalize our behavior which is that we don't like looking at ads, and we have the technical means to block ads, so we block ads. Anything more than that feels awfully post-hoc.
By blocking ads, you're denying revenue to people whose content you wish to consume. There is no way around this fact. Maybe, by doing this, you will encourage forms of revenue generation that are less intrusive, or maybe you want to encourage a culture where revenue generation isn't necessary, or any of a thousand other 'reasons'. But, I think that if you tell yourself that this is the primary reason that you block ads, as opposed to 'I find ads irritating and don't wish to view them', you should take special care to look really hard for some cognitive bias in your thinking, because you'll almost certainly find some.