Thank you for avoiding them! I do the same.
If the site is important to you, you should contact the owners with an alternative (such as an open source captcha, or spam filtering).
The only way to topple the monopoly of Google is to erode it site by site.
Lately I've experienced the same thing, often 3-4 rounds of captcha challenges, sometimes more. It's painful from UX standpoint and insulting as user. I've been trying to avoid any site that uses them, they're very user-hostile, but there's only so much you can avoid.