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.
Theft?
Methinks you don’t know the definition of the words you use.
Even if it is - fuck 'em. 99% of websites use invasive scripting to track us, and they’re clearly adversarial to us. Just read up on what Facebook has always done…think they’re the only ones?
Website owners had a chance in the late 90’s to treat users/consumers with respect, and chose to say “fuck you” instead, and since have doubled down on their attitude towards us.
Fine. You wanna play that way? I’ll teach everyone I know how to use ad blockers and tools like DNS filters. I’ll never buy something directly through your website, etc.
If you want to call ad blocking theft, then the delivery of ads is theft of my bandwidth, cpu time (electricity), and the invasive scripting/tracking is theft of my personal info.
How many boots do you lick in a day?
You use a service but deny it the remuneration it expects. If that does not meet your definition of theft, do you also think turnstile jumping is fair play?
It would be boot licking if Big Advertising or Big Content actually cared about my opinion. I have no illusion that they do.
Is boot licking made better or worse when the licked boots are apathetic?
You keep using that
wordphrase, I do not think it means what you think it means.