People block ads and/or not pay for content because they can. Simply because it's possible. People have been conditioned to consider any and all digital content to be worth zero. Yet continue to consume it for hours on end every day.
When not paying at all is an option people will reliably pick that option. They'll even go into extremes to avoid paying. I know somebody that plays a particular mobile game about an hour each day. Every round (taking 90s or so) it's interrupted by 1-3 mins of ads. It's maddening. She suffers through this instead of paying a one-time $4.99. We're talking about somebody firmly upper middle class.
When not paying at all is an option people will reliably pick that option. They'll even go into extremes to avoid paying. I know somebody that plays a particular mobile game about an hour each day. Every round (taking 90s or so) it's interrupted by 1-3 mins of ads. It's maddening. She suffers through this instead of paying a one-time $4.99. We're talking about somebody firmly upper middle class.