With magazines, at least those for very specialized audiences, the ads can actually be quite useful. For a general interest magazine, like TIME, or Scientific American, the ads are just filler for me. I'd rather have an ad-free version of the magazine.

But for something like QST (a ham radio magazine) where almost every advertiser is offering something I have an interest in, and where there are no physical stores in my area where I can go to browse the merchandise in person, the ads do a great job of keeping me current on what is available but are easy to ignore when I'm reading an article. I'd be disappointed if QST was ad-free.