I actually removed my ad blocker recently because I realized most sites I go to either don't have ads or they don't really bother me (hackernews, reddit, facebook, netflix, gmail, stackoverflow, various webcomics, etc...) and they pay for all that free content I consume. My life generally isn't better for the ads themselves but I think it is better for the services that these ad supported sites provide.

I've found many useful products that I enjoy using, such as my ReMarkable tablet, through targeted ads. I'd have never known it existed despite looking/waiting for exactly this type of product for years.

Personally I've bought a total of 0 products from adverts ever (pretty much since ~1999).

Adding an ad blocker a few years ago this trend is likely to continue, though now my web pages work better and my privacy is enhanced :)

The economy does.

Perhaps this is because I'm not an American, but my life doesn't revolve around "supporting the economy". The economy is supported when I go round living my life, not the other way round.

Exactly. Also: free market works well when the aggregated signals from customers are honest. Then it allocates resources efficiently. Advertising is all about disrupting this mechanism, injecting and generating fake signals that skew the market.

For now.