And I block ads because there is no other way to prevent massive-scale fraud, deception, distraction and malware from advertising afflicting me.

Ad networks can't swing the sword of justice at me while themselves standing on a platform of shaded pragmatism.

We all want things, but I sure as shit don't care what giant, rich ad corporations want from my computing equipment. Their needs aren't important to me at all, even though they currently subsidize the garbage fire that is the modern web.

> Ad networks insist on this because there's no other way to prevent massive-scale fraud by the customers - how should the ad network know that the end user is a "real" user and not a fake request the customer generated to drive up the impressions on pay-per-impression ads?

Then get rid of pay-per-impression. I'd rather have the days of affiliate links than the crap we have now. You advertise a widget on your site, I click on it and buy it. You get a (small) cut of the profit. It also tends to make ads match site content, since I won't be buying left-handed spanners advertised on a site dedicated to short-haired pomeranians, probably.

"Ad networks insist on this because there's no other way to prevent massive-scale fraud by the customers"

Then the ad networks business model is jacked and they should change it. If they can't find a better one, they should go out of business.