Or you know, people could not put popovers on blogs.
If they show up even with that active, though, now you have a valid complaint.
Good taste hasn't died and never will.
And there was never effectively an “ad-free internet”, if by internet you mean Web. We had ads on the Web in 1994.
I wish it weren’t so, but collecting emails was the personal advice of someone highly regarded by both myself and HN so it’s what I do—with an apology in the modal itself.