Cost of creation is one aspect, a server bill is the most tangible way to show cost. Take your post for example. Did it cost you a lot to write it? No. But I bet the cost in resources on your server for it making the front page of HN did go up.
If server costs are a worry then definitely spend some time on thinking about slimming down the presentation to the point where those are no longer a worry.
Whether that page gets viewed 10K or 100K times doesn't bother me, if it would get into the millions I'd have to do something about it (probably slim it down even further).
I haven't ran a site in the last 5 years that had an advertisement on it. But I have ran sites in the past that served over 400,000 unique visitors a day, and the only way I could afford to continue delivering the content that those visitors came for was to either require them to pay for it, or put advertisements on it.
I couldn't afford at that time a $1500/mo server bill to give content out for the love of it. It was a full time job just to curate and provide the content let alone work a full time job to pay for it too.
I see both sides. If you want to block ads and trackers, I fully understand and that is your right. I just don't like the fact that people feel entitled to the content of the website without agreeing to view the other stuff on the same page.
Once again, if you block my ads, go for it, your right. But it's also my right to deny you that content on the fact that you blocked my ads.
That is the problem here.
So now the unintrusive, non tracking ads (the good guys, if you wish) will be lumped in with the rest, because they are a very small fraction of the total and people that have finally had enough of all this can't be bothered to be precise enough about how hard they slam the door.
And I'm not complaining about companies that block me because I run an ad blocker, I couldn't care less, their loss, not mine, there is enough content out there that you couldn't consume it in several lifetimes if you wanted to.
Have a good weekend and happy high five Friday.