I appreciate that a handful of people actually whitelist sites they want to support, and another handful of people do what Lisa and I have done and paid our favourite sites so that we can support it without ads, but as I mentioned in my post, this is a tiny, tiny percentage of conscientious users versus the masses, who will just adblock everything and howl if any ads of any sort get through, without understanding or caring why there are ads in the first place.
I'm also aware that ads having to be loaded means the site in full will be slower loading, but unless there is a technical fault we are talking perhaps a second or two in time savings. I'm a big fan of blocking animated ads, pop-up ads, auto-playing ads (and auto-playing videos that are part of site content) and trackers that I haven't explicitly approved of (that would be "all of them"). But instead of creating a discussion about acceptable approaches that work for both site owners (who deserve to get compensated for their expenses AND make a profit for bringing me content I appreciate) and users, we're having a war in which each side tries to "go nuclear." The users will eventually "win" this war by destroying nearly every interesting site on the web by refusing to allow ANY advertising whatsoever, killing all incentive for putting up a worthwhile website in the first place.
There are some agencies, like The Deck, which serve ads to sites without offering any animated ads. Tiny sites run by one or two people who don't intend to make their living off the sites can probably get by with referral links (though there comes a point when they are inevitably compromising their honesty to "endorse" products that they know will generate income). There are, perhaps, solutions to this problem using conventional advertising formats (if you use the site for an hour, you have to watch or listen to an ad or two, that sort of thing) as well. But if you're demanding that all ads, of any kind, be blocked continuously -- and that's precisely what 98 percent of adblocker users are demanding -- you are killing the very websites you claim to like/need/love/rely on. Sure, you might find a substitute forum still running after this one goes out of business ... there's a lot of choice out there ... but that range of choice will get slimmer and slimmer, and the quality of the offerings will get worse and worse, unless there is some reason to expend the time and effort to make a quality site.
I encourage anyone reading this to think more about (or perhaps for the first time) about how sites you enjoy, like this one, sustain themselves or come to exist. We here at Mac-Forums are quite lucky, we can pay an EXTREMELY modest yearly fee to drop the ads and yet still support the site, or we can whitelist this site in our adblockers, or buy products with referral links from the sites, to help support it. Lots of options, but the truth of the matter is that if you're reading this site with adblockers on and not otherwise support it ... it will close up at some point. As will most other sites that depend on ad income to be able to even afford the hosting. Simple as that.