I use Pi-hole now, and it works great. The one feature that I use quite a lot is the ability to disable it for a short period of time -- when I'm shopping for something, Google ads are sometimes actually useful!
I'd say I use that feature about once a month. That's the sum value of advertising for me.
I like to get my host list from https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts
Did you check the 'Shopping' tab of Google search?
When you google search for something (like say a product or service that you want to purchase), you'll see a couple ads at the top of the results.
Pi-hole usually prevents most ads from even displaying, but those always show up. If the ad was useful and you want to click through, it will generally block the request. I think the click through sends you to doubleclick or something.
I've never disabled pi-hole in that situation, but there have been times when it was an annoyance because the ad was actually relevant.