Earlier quoted context omitted.
Should be added that the malicious part is often done by a third party that takes over an open source project when the original developer doesn't have the time/energy/money to maintain their open source/free work. Many Chrome extensions end up being sold for thousands or just hundreds of dollars because there's no money in them and the dev isn't all that interested. Society as a whole could easily avoid this by fundi…
Every time piracy or Youtube ads come up, HNers grandstand on how they don't even pay a dime to the content creators making the hundreds of hours of videos they watch. GGs if you want a buck for the VSCode theme you made.
I know I'm in the minority, but I block ads because of memetic hygiene. I don't want to deprive artists but I'm not sitting through adslop for a podcaster's sake.