I think that people blame the ads for the performance and experience issues and that's what causes them to search for ad blockers rather than the getting rid of ads for the sake of getting rid of ads. I might of course be wrong.
And they're right. Ads slow things down, especially because many ad networks are still using archaic JavaScript. (Lots of document.write...)
In any event, MrPleb's dismissive response is unwarranted.