randya, your argument is valid and I agree that public advertising has grown beyond all taste and decency, but it is not germane to this particular issue. You read and post to these forums of your own volition. You object to the ads present on these forums. You have the means to, at once, banish the ads from your sight, continue reading and posting as you have always done, and directly benefit the forums themselves. In short, you have control. Not so in the 'real world', where buying the trinkets hawked on a billboard won't make the billboard go away. These forums don't pay for themselves, and so we have a choice to either scroll by one ad per page or donate a relatively small sum.

Here's those two important words again, because they bear repeating:

Control. Choice.