Question about ads and Dreamwidth

At the time I started my LJ (Feb '02), I felt like I was a relatively late adopter of LJ. Now, I'm obscurely proud of my-nearly-decade-old kinda-sorta-blog, even if it doesn't see a lot of activity. (Same as I am of my 20-year-old email address on CIX.)

But every time I post something - such as today's update over on my techie LJ - I get people complaining about the pop-up ads. As I'm logged in, and I run ad-blocking software - which you should do too, if you don't already - I don't see them, but others do.

Is this the never-stated-anywhere-I've-seen reason that LJ-using friends of mine are apparently deserting to Dreamwidth?

I am not paying for an account, by the way - LJ earns me no revenue so I am not paying for it. danacea is urging me to quit LJ and start up what she sees as a "proper blog" on Wordpress or something, which I am also reluctant to do, but clearly, LJ's ads are becoming a major PITA and I have to do something.