It's not so much different than patching an hole in your payment system to make sure it can't be bypassed. I sure don't want to have to pay for plenty product, yet it's perfectly valid for them to expect to get paid. Same goes for ads, it's the cost to use that product, whether you like it or not.
It's a sad state to be where people works so hard to not have to pay. I agree that's an awful usage of a developer time, but the same apply to a payment system.
It's avoiding wanting to be a product.
If my attention has value, then I get to determine what that value is.
It's a sad state to be where corporations work so hard to steal people's time, attention and privacy and give them as little as possible in return.
Seeing ads isn't like paying, it's being subjected to a small amount of mental pain - that of not being able to do what you want because there's a commercial distracting you or blocking you from your goal.
It's actually a type of cruelty when you think about it.
That's exactly what you're doing by using the product. You could spend your time doing something else, or paying to skip ads instead.