You know, if someone would constantly burst into rooms shouting at the top of their lungs for you to give them money, we'd beat them with a wrench. Yet this same behavior is not only tolerated and excused, but encouraged, when done in the name of business profits.
I'd rephrase that to "and there are people who want to debate whether blocking advertisements is morally defensible" as this is not so much an indictment of "society" as it is an exposition of the moral bankruptcy of the advertising industry. The question should not be whether blocking ads is morally defensible but the other way around, whether exposing yourself and others to "modern" advertising is defensible - to which the answer is a wholehearted "Hell No".
Give me a catalogue full of ads like the Computer Shopper [1] magazine of yore and I'll sing praise of the advertisers who clearly showed what they sold for which prices. I actually bought the thing - imagine that, paying money for a telephone book-sized magazine filled with nothing but ads - because it was useful in showing what the market had to offer. A modern-day Computer Shopper would be filled with...
...lifestyle-related drivel
...virtue signalling diversity statements without any relation to whatever product is sold
...celebrities doing things they only do because they get millions for it
...clearly stupid clueless men who only make it through their day because they have women and girls to correct their stupid mistakes, bad choices and silly habits
...some more diversity statements but this time with celebrities
...etc.
Now I understand I'm not really part of the target market the advertisers are trying to brainwash and that the nothing-but-a-list-of-products-with-prices style of advertising does not appeal to everyone. Find some other way of reaching your target market which shares the simplicity and honesty of this type of advertising, stop shouting, stop the brainwashing, get rid of the subliminal messaging, ditch the lifestyle drivel, just quit being bottom feeders and get back to advertising products and prices, no more and no less. Unless you want to be beaten with a wrench that is but in that case you better start wearing helmets and toques.
And we wonder why society is so fucked up.