you are involved in the deal, because advertisers pay by how many times the ad is displayed (or clicked). just like how you are involved in the deal between the distributor and cinema, because the pay depends on how many tickets you buy.
by "the act" I meant things that are more popularly understood as piracy. even if torrenting cracked Assassin's Creed was legalized, I'd still call torrenting cracked video games piracy.
the analogue there would be clicking on the ad. google ads, probably the most popular single platform, has two kinds of ad payment: per-click and per-impression. by just receiving it and throwing it away you get rid of the former, but by blocking ads you get rid of both. (there's also the fact that most people do not block ads, while most people do throw away junk mail)
and if everyone throws away junk mail, there's still money, because the post office got paid to deliver it. same goes for not blocking ads but not looking at them.
these are as rare as non-tracking ads, and my approaches of<1. i don't use my web browser much on mobile (that distance probably fries my eyes anyways) 2. i use µBO and whitelist sites on my normal computer>probably help me avoid that anyways
thing is with ads you can block, the advertiser is not paying if the ad is blocked.
i agree that taking a restroom break while an ad is showing is not piracy. that's not blocking the ad, though.