Depending on how old you are, it used to be the norm in magazines and newspapers. You have an educational product so you buy an ad on the educational feature, for example.
I understand that advertisers pay for the sites I use and I would turn off the ad-blocker if I was promised I wasn't being tracked. But we have no control over those decisions so we do what we can.
I would love to see real data on this! Most of my peers don't want to be marketed to, at least when it comes to internet advertising. Definitely when it comes to traditional advertising (ie billboards are an eyesore, TV ads are offensive or irrelevant or just plain annoying).