This is a conflict of values between users and the devs.

- Users want ads to just go away, period, the end.

- The devs want ads to be nice. So they swat down the nasty ones and permit the nice ones.

Ransomware was probably the wrong way to do that, but I can see why it was superficially appealing. "We check your ads for niceness, and then permit them. We won't give our effort away for free", being the idea behind it.

As a user, I do want ads to just go away. Since they started some 20-odd years ago, advertisers have abused the medium. If advertisers had had even a smattering of propriety, I wouldn't have been using an ad blocker since I first learned they were a thing.

If advertisers take a sudden "nice" approach, I'll keep blocking ads for another decade or so and see if the trend lasts. That's all I feel I owe them at this point.

I don't want ads to go away. I want ads that are relevant, or at least aren't insultingly stupid.

The utter shit people run on major sites these days is so patently offensive ("Single Mom's Weight Loss Trick!", "Get Government Money Tomorrow!") that I keep a blocker on for my own sanity. I'm consistently appalled at the extremely low quality advertising that supposedly reputable properties put on their sites.

Give me good ads, please. Don't give me garbage.

Whilst I largely disagree with you on advertising generally (see Adam Curtis, Neil Postman and Jerry Mander for the long argument), I have to agree with you on the growing preponderance of low-quality ads.

I see few to none on Firefox, but even with a firewall hosts blocklist, Chrome/Android shows the bottom-feeder stuff on, again, supposedly reputable publishers' sites: TIME, CNN, Salon, Vox, and more. And the only impression it gives me is that thes companies have to be absolutely desperate to let that crap darken their pages.

You're right, it's absolutely insulting. To both the reader and the sites running the spots.

They are optimizing their ads for effectiveness. Patently offensive garbage ads weed out all but the most gullible of customers. Show them to enough people and the idiots come flowing in, cards at the ready to buy miracles and snake oil.

except by nice ads they mean anyone willing to pay to get whitelisted

Is this actually true? Can you give an example of a dumb or distracting or obnoxiously obtrusive ad that got whitelisted for pay?

sadly no. i know NDA are void in california, but california also has employment at will.

I have never trusted the ABP people. But this is not the "opposite of the expected purpose of the application." In fact ABP is working exactly as designed, by blocking other people's ads, and allowing ads that ABP profits from. From day one, the business model was shakedowns of large advertisers. This is just a slight evolution in technique.

Well, huh, they do state the purpose clear on their homepage:

    Surf the web without annoying ads!

    Can block tracking, malware domains, banners, pop-ups and video ads - even on Facebook and YouTube
    Unobtrusive ads aren't being blocked in order to support websites (configurable)
    It's free! (GPLv3)

Um. If you turn 'acceptable ads' on, this is the stated and expected purpose of the application, and it explains this during installation.

They're experimenting with a new and better way to power the exact feature I installed the software for.

No trust is being violated here.