Actually I don't mind the feature existing. Small clearly labeled text ads don't add much to the page loading time and can be clearly seen as ads.

However I still normally disable the ads as I really enjoy the increased screen space gained by removing the ads.

Asking for money to whitelist ads it rather poor policy however. If an ad is small and clearly an ad then whitelist it. If it's not then blacklist it. Having to pay to have your non-intrusive ads whitelisted is shitty. I hope they didn't have to pay very much.