...and it wears people out.
Seriously.
If you guys want a significant portion of why I no longer own this forum, then you need to look no further than the statement from Bob that I quoted.
It didn't matter what we did, we were wrong, and the threads whining about it would go on, and on, and on, and on. It started sucking the life out of the hobby for me.
Now, there are some ads here. Guess what? Almost every website I use has ads, and many of them they're more intrusive than they are here.
If you'd put half the energy into adding useful content to this forum that you put into pissing and moaning about ads, think about the amount of beneficial content there would be here.
If you want to know what drives potential users away faster than ads, look at threads like this. Does a site where a lot of the initial content that you see is people pissing and moaning sound very fun or inviting to look at? Would it attract you to stick around?