Most free web sites pay for their upkeep with ads. It has been an unwritten agreement since forever (or at least as long as there have been ads on the web) that if you consume the content, you pay the creator by looking at the ads on their site.
Consuming the content without looking at the ads is like shoplifting because you don’t like the way a store’s checkout counter works and/or the fact that they want money from you at all.
I think I’d be ok with removing my ad blocker if ads were simple and non intrusive and creators actually got a decent chunk of the ad revenue. The reason I use it however is that most websites have proven that if you give them an inch they’ll take a mile. So many websites now have so many ads that the actual content is barely visible through the mid-page ads, auto play videos, popups and banners. And that’s not even mentioning the tracking and cookies they now request/use. The internet has become unusable without an ad blocker. If I want to support someone’s content I’d rather use whatever donation method they have set up.