I think they just don't want to see ads as intrusive as the ones found these days. Neither do I.
While my main concerns are performance, bandwidth, security and privacy, I don't think that simple static image ads would have led to the widespread adoption of ad blockers we're currently seeing.
In my opinion it's due to the fact that ads became very intrusive lately - video, audio, flash, popups, fullscreen overlays, endless scripts, you name it.
Absolutely. The number of people who would still resort to blocking ads if they were non-targeted, static, tastefully done yet clearly recognizable as advertisements, served locally, non-tracking, and non-obtrusive would probably have been negligible. But now there is an entire economy that depends on advertisements that track you and know you and need to be served via third party brokers, because if they didn't they wouldn't sell.
I don't know the solution to fix this mess, but I will gladly help pop the current bubble so something more useful can replace it.
In my opinion it's due to the fact that ads became very intrusive lately - video, audio, flash, popups, fullscreen overlays, endless scripts, you name it.